The ancient church of St. Augustine as 'Aula Magna' of the University of Bergamo

The Church of St. Augustine, at the border of the so-called “high town” of Bergamo, is a very particular example of Gothic architecture from XIII century belonging to the monastic order of Eremites of St. Augustine. It is a single nave church, with transverse pointed arches supporting the roof and lateral chapels along the walls; the facade, in brown sandstone, shows two very high pointed windows and a little rose. The church and his monastery were so important that they were included inside the perimeter of the walls built by Venetians in the XVI century, so that of the terminal rampart in direction Southeast was built enlarging the layout of the walls to include the church and the adjacent cloisters. When in the 1797 all religious order were eliminated by the French occupancy, the monastery become barracks for French, then Austrian, and finally Italian army until 1966, when the church and the monastery were at last yield to the municipality ‘for cultural destination’. After 20 years of discussions, the larger cloister was eventually restored and adapted for the University, which hosts here the lecture rooms and the public library of the department of Human Sciences. Now, in September 2015, again with the support of the City Council, also the old church born again to a new use, becoming the Main Hall of the University of Bergamo. The example of reuse of an ancient church belonging to another religious order, the Dominicans in Maastricht, also transformed at the beginning of XIX century, is chosen in order to make a comparison between different approaches to the subject, both respecting high quality and architectural standards, although with different results.