Contarini Fountain ---

An octagon in white marble from Zandobbio stands majestically at the center of Piazza Vecchia, the most famous and frequented square in the Città Alta. Around the basin are arranged statues of sphinxes, serpents and lions, guarding the fountain. The monument, donated to Bergamo by Podestà Alvise Contarini in 1780, has not always been where you see it now: for about 30 years it was dismantled to make room for a statue of Garibaldi, which was later moved to the lower city at the beginning of the 1900s. A small curiosity: now the Contarini Fountain has mainly an aesthetic function, but when it was first built it served as a water reserve for domestic use and to combat drought.