Cathedral of St. Alessandro

Saint Alexander of Bergamo (died c. 303) is the patron saint of Bergamo. Alexander may simply have been a Roman soldier or resident of Bergamo who was tortured and killed for not renouncing his Christian faith. Details of his life are uncertain, but subsequent Christian legends consider him a centurion who decided to become a preacher and who converted many natives of Bergamo. A golden statue of Alexander sits atop the dome of the cathedral.
The first mention of a church on the site was in the 6thC. By the 1400s, bishop Giovanni Barozzi commissioned a new building designed by Atonio Averulino. In 1689, the structure was updated using designs by Carlo Fontana. The façade was completed in 1889.
In the first chapel on the right is St. Benedict and Saints by Andrea Previtali (1524), and on the first chapel to the left of the nave is the Madonna and child with Saints by Giovan Battista Moroni (1576). The church has a Madonna with child with two doves by Giovanni Cariani, as well as canvases attributed to Giambettino Cignaroli and Sebastiano Ricci, and Saints Firmus, Rusticus, and Proculus (1704). The apse has the Martyrdom of St. John of Bergamo, Bishop (1731 – 1743) by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. The St. Alessandro was painted by Carlo Innocenzo Carloni. The main altar was designed by Filippo Juvara. The choir area has wooden intaglio panels by Johann Karl Sanz.
The cathedral is not merely a monument; it is a working church and regular place of worship, the centre of religious life in the diocese of Bergamo, and a place where the Bishop himself reads the service on important religious dates.