Piazza Vecchia represents the core of Città Alta: it has been the heart of political power for centuries and it keeps being one of the most popular places for Bergamo’s citizens to spend some time with friends. Beauty is all around you if you have a seat at one of the square’s restaurants or cafes, having a drink, breakfast or even a romantic dinner. You can admire the building called “Palazzo della Ragione”, the oldest municipal seat in Lombardy, as well as the Torre Civica, a bell tower also called “Campanone”. In the middle of the square is located the Contarini Fountain, which was donated to the city by the chief magistrate Alvise Contarini in 1780, while on the opposite side of Piazza Vecchia you can see the Palazzo Nuovo (“New Palace”), which served as Bergamo’s Town Hall until 1873 and is today the seat of the Angelo Mai Library. The geometrical layout of the buildings around the square is so harmonic that when Le Corbusier visited Bergamo he said “you can’t move a single stone, it would be a crime”

The most interesting aspect of this museum is the building itself - a mosque with the only intact minaret in the Aegean Islands. The museum contains a clutter of Hellenistic statuary, Roman slabs and a collection of Turkish, Jewish and Armenian tombstones that hint at the island’s multi-ethnic past.

This is a museum set up in honour of opera composer Gaetano Donizetti. The archive at the museum stores, among many things, original printed editions of books, valuable iconographic collection and various relics.