Luogo Pio Colleoni ---

Contested between Milan and Venice, this figure of the Italian Renaissance is counted among illustrious Bergamasques: we are speaking of Bartolomeo Colleoni, who was a valiant military commander of fifteenth-century Italy, serving the Sforza, the Visconti and the Serenissima (the Republic of Venice). An introduction to this historical figure is necessary, because the Luogo Pio della Pietà was the Bergamese residence of the captain, where he stayed when he was in the city. Having no male heirs, by the will of Colleoni himself, in 1476 it was transformed into a charitable institution designed to welcome marginalized and indigent women, a status it maintains to the present day, and from which the name derives. A small artistic heritage is enclosed within the