Ordini religiosi a Brescia tra Medioevo ed Età Moderna. Analisi urbana e architettonica

The study of the monastic complexes focuses on the architectural conformation and on the distribution in the urban fabric, to highlight the conditioning and specificity of the various religious orders that occurred in Brescia by the many orders that settled here between the Middle Ages and the advent of Napoleon. The suppression of 31 convents indicates their diffusion at the time: it is a story that begins with the prominence (VI-IX century) of the male and female Benedictine order, expressed in the convents of SS. Cosma and Damiano, S. Giulia and S. Faustino. After 1000 some phases of expansion of the city are testified by two new city walls which incorporate existing monasteries and allow the building of others. The construction of the medieval walls of 1237 is important: the designer himself belongs to the order of the Humiliated. The religious orders therefore not only express spiritual support but have the skills to prefigure the forma urbis: the friar Alberico da Gambara in fact designs the south-western urban development with a road and block design that takes up the orthogonal Roman layout. In this broader urban layout, the new institutes of the Humiliated and Mendicants sought positions that suited them: the former along watercourses, to feed the wool industry with hydraulic energy; the latter at the connection points between the city and the territory. In the following centuries many institutes were registered: the Brescia land register of 1610 lists 88 churches, 16 convents and 15 monasteries. The Benedictines will express Cardinal Angelo Querini, an illustrious figure like that of Alberico. A character of European caliber cultured and modern, he had an impact on the city leaving the library of the same name. With the Napoleonic suppression the convents are reconverted to new uses.