TOeven this year, on the occasion of the 12th edition of Landscape Festival – Masters of Landscape, piazza Vecchia in the heart of upper Bergamo is tinged with green and becomes the Green Square. Until the 25 September nextvisitors can wander among willows and aquatic irises, hornbeams and sedges, black alders and white poplars, in a landscape colored by the fuchsia flowers of the salicaria and the bright red of the hibiscus coccineuscreated by German landscape architect Cassian Schmidt.
The Lombard heritage
This green oasis made for Masters of the Landscape evokes a forgotten landscape: that of riparian forests of the river Powhich today survives in a fragmented way.
It is “Lombardy’s legacy and the last plant community that grows without rules,” said Schmidt. A mosaic of biodiversitywhich the landscape architect with the involvement of four students from Weihenstephan University recreated using 80 trees and 7000 plants. A blue carpet crosses the square, simulating the river Po and dividing the Green Square into different areas of vegetation. And it reminds us that the architect of the river landscape is water.
Refresh the cities
The apparent disorder of the riparian environment overflows with biodiversity – Ph Maria Tatsos
The main installation of Masters of the Landscape is alive. From the beginning it has become a destination for bees and plants make it possible with their presence more pleasant the temperature. In this summer when drought and heat have hit northern Italy, it is more necessary than ever bring nature back to our cities. The mayor Giorgio Gori also recalled this. This is the answer we can give to climate change to which we are all exposed. The plants of the Green Square testify to the mitigation they are able to offer. “To cool cities, the easiest way is to plant trees,” said Schmidt. “You can create green spaces in car parks or on roofs, there are many possibilities”.
The landscape architect Cassian Schmidt – Ph Maria Tatsos
A valley to discover
In addition to Piazza Vecchia, the center is animated by other installations, such as those atancient wash housewhere they triumph aquatic plantse, surrounded by colorful flower beds of rudbeckie and echinaceae, and in piazza Mascheroni. If you want to plan a green tour in Bergamo on the occasion of Masters of the Landscapedon’t forget to visit the Biodiversity Valley, created in Astino by the city’s Botanical Garden. The rural scenery is of rare beauty thanks to the presence of the church of the Holy Sepulcher andformer Astino monasteryfounded in the twelfth century by the monks of Vallombrosa, which allows you to combine the pleasure of observing crops with art.
The former monastery of Astino and the Biodiversity valley – © VisitBergamo
Greedy stop
There Astino Valley in 2021 he won theInternational Landscape Award of the Council of Europe. An important ongoing project concerns the creation of a international landscape observatory, a research center that will be based in this very place. And for those who love good food, Astino offers opportunities for a delicious break. There are two restaurants: Cavour 1880 And From Mimmo.
The Cavour 1880 in Astino – Photo www.cavour1880.com
Secret places
The visit to the Green Square from Masters of the Landscape is the right occasion to discover a jewel: Palazzo Moroni with its gardens of two hectares, in the heart of upper Bergamo. On the occasion of the Landscape Festivalevery day until 25 September there are guided tours to discover the secret landscapes of Moroni Palace. The seventeenth-century palace was built by this wealthy family from Bergamo, who had enriched themselves two centuries earlier with mulberries and silkworm breeding.
The hall dedicated to the “Gerusalemme Liberata” by Torquato Tasso – Ph Stefano Casiraghi / FAI
The charm of the vegetable garden
The gardens are divided into one part Italian stylearticulated on three terraces, and in a larger area where they were orchards and vegetable gardenscall vegetable garden. The FAI, which has been dealing with this property for some years, is trying to reconstruct through historical documents which plants were grown. There are still cherry trees, vines and figs, but some flounces remain empty. Also present were a roccolo made of hornbeam trees intertwined, where birds were caught, and hives for bees.
Vineyards in the vegetable garden – Ph Stefano Casiraghi / FAI
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