Cesare Mazzoni - the businessman who made San Pellegrino world famous

Entrepreneur turned local water into a global export

The original headquarters of the San Pellegrino
mineral water company, founded in 1899

Cesare Mazzoni, a Milanese lawyer who founded the company that produces the world-famous San Pellegrino mineral water, died on August 21, 1915 - 111 years ago today- in Milan.

The business Mazzoni started, in the small spa town of San Pellegrino Terme, manufactured 1.5 million bottles of the beneficial water during its first year of production in 1905 and went on to become a multimillion-pound operation.

The son of an English teacher, Mazzoni was born in Milan in 1862. He studied Law at the University of Pavia, a course from which he graduated with full marks. He then went to work for a railway company dealing with aspects of commercial law.

Mazzoni founded the Società Anonima delle Terme di San Pellegrino in 1899 and took over the running of the Hotel Terme and Fonte Palazzolo company, and the Hotel Milano and Fonte Salaroli company, after buying them from the local families who owned them.

Cesare Mazzoni studied law before becoming
a highly successful businessman 

He built new spa facilities and employed the architect Romolo Squadrelli to design and build a new water bottling plant in San Pellegrino, completed in what’s known in Italy as Stile Liberty - the Italian twist on Art Nouveau - between 1902 and 1904.

Within a few years of opening the plant, the 60 people who Mazzoni employed there were producing between four and five million bottles of the spa water annually to go on sale.

Mazzoni also founded the Val Brembana electric railway and joint stock company in 1904, which built the Bergamo to San Giovanni Bianco railway line, and he founded the Milanese Joint Stock Company for the Salami and Cheese industry of Milan in 1909.

He became president of many companies in Val Brembana and Val Camonica and was also an advisor to banks in the Bergamo area.

But Mazzoni was suddenly taken ill in August 1915 and he died on August 21 that same year, aged just 53. He was buried in the Cimitero Monumentale of Milan.

The municipality of San Pellegrino officially recognised Mazzoni as un ‘cittadino benemerito’,  a  ‘citizen of merit’, and in 1916 a street was named after him near the area where the thermal establishments were located.

The Liberty-style Grand Hotel and Casino of
San Pellegrino harks back to a golden age

The reputation of San Pellegrino water being good for people’s health dates back to medieval times and by the early years of the 19th century, many noble people would travel to the town to ‘take the water’ because it was believed to be beneficial.

Soon after the company was founded in 1899 by Mazzoni, bottles of San Pelegrino water began to be shipped overseas. With the opening of the thermal facilities at the beginning of the 20th century, San Pellegrino started to thrive as a high-class holiday resort, which attracted aristocrats from all over Europe.

Also designed by Squadrelli, the Liberty-style Grand Hotel and Casino of San Pellegrino were opened in 1906 and they soon became popular haunts for international royalty and politicians. Two Queens of Italy and other members of the Italian royal family visited, along with famous people such as opera composer Pietro Mascagni, army General Luigi Cadorna and film director Federico Fellini.

The San Pellegrino name
is known world-wide

As early as 1908, San Pellegrino water was being exported to Cairo, Calcutta, Shanghai, the US, Brazil, Peru and Australia.

The company was also the first to produce Aranciata, or orangeade, in the 1930s, and they went on to produce sparkling drinks in other fruit flavours.

In 2010, more than a billion bottles of San Pellegrino water and San Pellegrino fruit beverages were sold in a single year.

The spa town of San Pellegrino Terme is 24km (14 miles) north of the city of Bergamo and is a comune - municipality - of Bergamo province, located in the Val Brembana. The name San Pellegrino has now become synonymous with its celebrated bottled aqua minerale, but for centuries it has been a place people visited, hoping for a cure for their illnesses.

Leonardo da Vinci is reputedly one of the visitors who sampled San Pellegrino’s ‘miraculous waters’, which are believed to be particularly effective against uric acid crystals and kidney stones.

It is well worth a visit to see the opulent Liberty-style architecture and to take a stroll along the banks of the River Brembo, imagining what San Pellegrino must have been like at the height of its popularity when it was frequented by royalty and celebrities. Viale Cesare Mazzoni is situated near the Brembo river and the thermal establishments.

San Pellegrino S.p.a's modern headquarters are situated on Via Lodovico de' Medici in the Ruspino district of San Pellegrino Terme.

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Chiesa di San Leonardo

Church at the heart of the Città Bassa houses miracle fresco

Chiesa San Leonardo, in Largo
Niccolo Rezzara in the lower town

Chiesa San Leonardo is believed to be the oldest church in Bergamo’s lower town and can be found in the middle of all the shops and bars in Largo Niccolo Rezzara, which is close to Via XX Settembre, Bergamo’s main shopping street.

San Leonardo Church was originally built in the 11th century, although the present building dates back to the 14th century. Originally, it would have been part of a group of buildings that included a convent and a hospital.

Dedicated to San Leonardo, who is the patron saint of the sick and prisoners, the church has a simple interior with a single nave and there is a small chapel to the right of the altar containing a very old fresco.

The original structure of the church was damaged by fire in 1310 and had to be rebuilt. It was suppressed in 1797 when Bergamo came under the rule of Napoleon, but was reopened for worship at the beginning of the 19th century.

The church was renovated at the end of the last century. The façade was reconstructed and the portal, the two side windows, and the central circular window were put back in.

In recognition of San Leonardo being the protector of prisoners, the church became a centre for the organisation of food to be delivered to places of punishment.

In the presbytery of the church, works by Antonio Cifrondi dating back to the late 17th century can be seen.

San Leonardo's
central aisle

The small chapel to the right of the main altar contains a very old fresco of the Madonna that was suddenly discovered in the church by worshippers. There is a story that in 1613, the fresco of Mary, the mother of Jesus, miraculously appeared in the church in a niche where a statue of the Virgin had been placed. It is thought that it was actually a very old fresco that had been covered up by lime, but that the covering had gradually worn away, eventually revealing the fresco.

Local women cleaned the fresco with rags, but when this was communicated to the bishop, he thought it should be covered up again because it had been cleaned with unsuitable cloths that had deconsecrated it.

However, worshippers appealed to the Sacred Roman Congregation and in 1618 they ruled that the fresco should be rediscovered and it went on to become a devotional image for Bergamo people to worship.

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Chilling story that gave notoriety to village in Val Brembana

Mass murderer born 168 years ago still officially on the run

Simone Pianetti shot and killed
seven perceived enemies

Notorious murderer Simone Pianetti, who is regarded as a hero by some Italian and American anarchists, was born on 7 February 1858 in Camerata Cornello in the province of Bergamo.

In July 1914, Pianetti went out with his rifle one day and shot and killed seven people living in his local area who he believed had wronged him. He then went on the run and after firing at some Carabinieri officers who tried to arrest him, escaped into the mountains above Bergamo.

A search was carried out by more than 200 officers, from the Polizia di Stato, the Carabinieri and an infantry regiment, to try to capture him, but Pianetti managed to stay hidden in the mountains near the villages of Olmo al Brembo and Cassiglio.

Despite a 'Wanted' poster being published and circulated by the local Prefetto, offering a 5000 lire reward, Pianetti was never caught and his body was never found.

It is known that when he was young, Pianetti had fired his rifle at his father without injuring him, after an argument over a legacy. He was not charged with any offence as a result and, with the agreement of the local head of the Carabinieri, he left Italy and went to the USA.

Years later, he returned to Italy, his journey being paid for by his father, and he went back to live in Camerata Cornello, where he got married and fathered seven children.

He opened a small restaurant where customers were also allowed to dance, but because the local parish priest and other church officials did not approve of the dancing at his restaurant, he was eventually forced to close it by the municipal authorities.

A reward of 5,000 lire was offered
for help with the search for Pianetti

He then opened an electric powered mill, but this later also turned out to be an unsuccessful business venture because his reputation was blackened by his enemies and he lost all his money and became impoverished.

As the only person in the area who did not attend church, Pianetti steadily grew to believe that everyone hated him, which led to his murderous rampage in 1914.

On the morning of 13 July, Pianetti went out with his rifle and a list of the people who he believed had contributed towards his business failures and his poverty by either closing him down, or cheating him. His eventual victims were the local doctor, Domenico Morali, the manager of the municipality, Abramo Giudici, and his daughter, Valeria, Giovanni Ghilardi, a shoemaker, Stefano Filippo, a priest, Giovanni Giupponi, a layman, and Caterina Milesi, a farmer.

It is thought his actions in 1914 could have been inspired by those of Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian student, who had assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife the previous month, the famous killings that set off the events that led to the start of World War I.

Pianetti was known to have survived in hiding in the mountains for some time and it is not known, when, or where, he eventually died. It is thought it may have been in 1952 in Milan, but this has never been proved. There were also reported sightings of him in the Bergamo mountains, as well as in America and Venezuela.

Some of the local people began to see the fugitive Pianetti as a liberator, and wrote on walls, praising him, with slogans such as ‘Long Live Pianetti, we need one in every town’.

It is thought people helped him stay hidden from the authorities by giving him food. Some residents were later sentenced to terms of imprisonment for helping him.

The village of Camerata Cornello, where
Pianetti carried out his killing spree

In his absence, Pianetti was sentenced to life imprisonment, which was accompanied by a sentence of five years in continuous solitary confinement.

Many theories have been put forward about how he escaped justice. Some people claim to have met him years later in America, and there is a theory that in his old age he returned from there and lived with his son, Nino, in Milan, until he died in 1952.

In later years, Pianetti’s story came to be admired by some Italian and American anarchists because of the actions he took against what was perceived to be the bigotry of those in authority in Italy, in the religious establishment and the society of his time.

He is remembered in towns in the Brembana Valley as a sort of avenger, often referred to as a righter of wrongs, and a hero opposed to the people in authority. The “romantic” aspect of his story endures, leaving aside the tragic and criminal side, and the threat of “doing like Pianetti”, (in the Bergamo dialect fà de Pianetti) is sometimes used.

Pianetti’s death has never been recorded and the case against him has never been dropped, so he is now officially on the run aged 168.

His birthplace, Camerata Cornello, a comune of Bergamo, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) north of the city, is one of the oldest villages in the Brembana Valley.

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Bergamo Capodanno 2026

Seeing in the New Year with fizz and bangs

Fireworks light up the sky
over Porta San Giacomo

Bergamo welcomed 2026 in typically civilised style with a sparkling fireworks display and plenty of bollicine (bubbles).

After dining either at home, or at restaurants in the Città Alta, local revellers and visitors were in a festive mood as they made their way down to the walls near Porta San Giacomo at midnight to watch the fuochi d’artificio being set off in the Città Bassa and many villages in the surrounding territory.

Everyone was in a happy mood and it was a comfortable environment for children and older people to be part of. Even though it was a convivial atmosphere, with many people bringing their choice of fizz with them, there was no need for a police presence.

Some of the foreign visitors enjoying the occasion might well have thought that they would not have felt quite so comfortable joining in with outdoor New Year celebrations in their own home cities and towns.

Un Buon Anno a tutti, di Best of Bergamo!

Editor’s note: "When I returned to my hotel, the Excelsior San Marco, with my own family party, we were immediately wished Buon Anno by the staff on the reception desk and handed a complimentary glass of Prosecco."

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Francesco Zucco, prolific painter in 16th and 17th centuries

Esteemed painter left his mark on Bergamo and its province

Zucco's San Diego e la Vergine in the 

church of Santa Maria delle Grazie

Francesco Zucco, who was a prolific painter in the Baroque style in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, died on May 5, 1627 in Bergamo.

Zucco painted both secular and religious subjects after he had trained as an artist and learnt about technique from other Bergamo painters, such as Giovanni Paolo Cavagna and Enea Salmeggia. Art critics have compared the quality and style of his portrait painting with that of Veronese, whose real name was Paolo Caliari, and the portrait painter Giovan Battista Moroni.

Francesco Zucco was born at some time between 1570 and 1575 in Bergamo. He is known to have studied art at the workshop of the Campi brothers in Cremona and afterwards returned to live in his native city, where he associated with other painters working in Bergamo at the time.

Even if he was never a pupil of the Bergamo portrait painter Giovan Battista Moroni, art experts believe Zucco must have studied Moroni’s works closely. He also formed strong personal links with Cavagna and Salmeggia. They all lived close to each other in Borgo San Leonardo, in the Città Bassa.

As he matured, Zucco began to dominate the artistic scene in Bergamo and painted many religious works of art. His success began in 1592 with his painting, La circoncisione di Gesù - the Circumcision of Jesus - for a church in Stezzano in the province of Bergamo. It was a work that revealed signs of the training he had received from the Campi brothers at their workshop in Cremona.

The following year, Zucco painted Vergine con bambino e santi - Virgin with baby and saints - and L’adorazione dei Magi - the Adoration of the Magi - for the Church of Santi Pietro e Paolo, in Levate in the province of Bergamo. The painting of the Magi was signed Franciscus Zucchis 1593, indicating that he had already achieved some artistic fame. His style was similar to that of Moroni, while maintaining the strength of design reminiscent of the Campi brothers.

Sant'Alessandro in Colonna was
Francesco Zucco's local church

Zucco then received numerous commissions that gave him the chance to perfect his own style. Among the many works he executed towards the end of the 16th century is a Vergine con bambino, Virgin with child, for the church at Orio al Serio, a comune of Bergamo that is well known to millions of  visitors to Italy because of its airport.

In subsequent years, there were many paintings for other churches in the province but, in Bergamo itself, Zucco painted for the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore and the Monastero di Astino.

For his own local church, Sant’Alessandro in Colonna in Via Sant’Alessandro, which is named after Bergamo’s patron saint and was near where he lived in Bergamo, Zucco painted a Cycle of the life of Sant’Alessandro. The church also has his last known painting, Sant’Alessandro si presenta ad un Vescovo - Saint Alexander is presented to a Bishop - which was dated 1627.

A Roman column in front of Sant’Alessandro in Colonna is believed to mark the exact spot where Bergamo’s patron saint was martyred by the Romans for refusing to renounce his Christian faith. 

The column in Via Sant’Alessandro was constructed in the 17th century from Roman fragments and every year on 26 August, the city of Bergamo remembers their saint’s decapitation there in 303. Sant’Alessandro in Colonna was rebuilt in the 18th century on the site of an earlier church and its ornate campanile was completed at the beginning of the 20th century.

The church houses work by Francesco Zucco, as well as a work depicting the Martyrdom of Sant’Alessandro by Enea Salmeggia, and one showing the transporting of Sant’Alessandro’s corpse by Gian Paolo Cavagna. It also contains paintings by Lorenzo Lotto and Romanino.

Zucco married Aurelia Chiesa and they had three children, Bartolomeo Carlo, born in 1617, and Margherita and Giovanni Battista, who were born in 1623. Sadly, Zucco did not live long enough to see his children grow up. He died on 3 May 1627 at his home in Bergamo.

Some of Zucco's portrait paintings are in the
collection of Bergamo's Accademia Carrara

Examples of his religious paintings can still be seen in the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in the Città Alta in Bergamo and in many other churches throughout the province of Bergamo. The Accademia Cararra in Bergamo have some of his portraits on display, such as the acclaimed Ritratto del gentildonna gravida - Portrait of an expectant gentlewoman.

The Accademia Carrara, a palace filled with art treasures, is just outside the Città Alta in Piazza Giacomo Carrara. The palace was built in the 18th century to house one of the richest private collections of art in Italy and now houses some of the portraits painted by Francesco Zucco. It is the only Italian museum to be entirely stocked with donations and bequests from private collectors.

 

It was established in Bergamo in 1794 as a combined Pinacoteca and School of Painting, on the initiative of Bergamo aristocrat Count Giacomo Carrara. In addition to his collection of paintings, he left his entire estate to the Accademia to secure its future. The number and quality of works on display in the gallery has steadily increased over the years, thanks to donations and bequests from private collectors.

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Antonio Locatelli - Bergamo war hero

Brave airman tried to circumnavigate the globe

Today marks the 130th anniversary of the birth in Bergamo of the pioneering aviator Antonio Locatelli. Recognised for his valour during World War I, Locatelli also attempted to make the first aerial circumnavigation of the globe.

The pilot was celebrated for performing solo reconnaissance flights over Zeppelin yards in Austria and for being daring enough to fly over Vienna, before he was shot down and captured and sent to a prisoner of war camp. He tried unsuccessfully to escape twice, but was successful on his third attempt and was able to rejoin the Italian troops.

After the war, he was awarded three Gold medals and a Silver medal for military valour and made a Knight of the Military Order of Savoy.

Born into a Bergamo family in 1895, Locatelli studied at the Istituto Industriale Pietro Paleocapa in Bergamo and then became chief technician at a local company.

After World War I broke out, Locatelli joined a flying unit and was granted his pilot’s licence in 1915. He then served in the poet and patriot Gabriele D’Annunzio’s air squadron.

He flew 513 sorties during the war, starting with reconnaissance missions, but then flying fighters and bombers.

In 1924, Locatelli led Italy’s attempt to achieve the first aerial circumnavigation of the globe. With a crew of three, he flew a German-made flying boat, a metal-hulled Dornier Do J Wal - whale - powered by two Rolls Royce engines. He left Pisa on 25 July heading west, but his attempt came to an end on 21 August when heavy fog forced him to touch down in the sea 120 miles short of Greenland. The plane’s engine carriers were damaged and so the flight could not be resumed.

A Dornier flying boat similar to the one in which
which Locatelli attempted to fly around the globe

Fortunately, four days earlier he had met up in Reykjavik with the American team who were attempting the same feat and this meeting was to save the lives of Locatelli and his crew.

When the Italians failed to arrive in Greenland, the Americans raised the alarm and Locatelli and his crew were picked up by a US naval ship that had been sent to search the area.

Locatelli later became a National Fascist party legislator and was elected as a deputy to parliament. In 1933 he was nominated as podestà - mayor - of Bergamo, a role in which he served for a year. 

In 1936, at the age of 41, Locatelli was killed in Lechemeti in Ethiopia during the second Italo-Ethiopian war. He was buried in the Cimitero Monumentale di Bergamo.

In Bergamo, Via Antonio Locatelli in the Città Bassa is named after him and he is also commemorated by the Antonio Locatelli Primary School in Cavernago, a comune - municipality - situated about 11 km (7 miles) southeast of Bergamo.

Locatelli had been a keen mountaineer in his youth and had climbed the Adamello in Trentino with his brother, Carlo. Therefore, the Antonio Locatelli Hut, a refuge in the Tre Cime Natural Park in Alto Adige-South Tyrol is named after him. 

To honour Locatelli’s memory, a statue of the Virgin of Loreto, the patron saint of airmen, is housed inside the refuge. From the refuge, visitors have panoramic views of the Tre Cime di Lavaredo, three distinctive mountain peaks that look like battlements.

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Musician from Clusone who had big influence on late Baroque music

Bergamo maestro’s Baroque music is still played today by enthusiasts

Giovanni Legrenzi was the organist at
the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore

Organist and composer Giovanni Legrenzi, who was influential in the development of late Baroque music in Italy, was baptised on August 12, 1626 at Clusone, in Val Seriana near Bergamo, which was at the time part of the Republic of Venice.

Legrenzi was to become one of the most prominent  composers of opera, vocal, and instrumental music working in Venice in the late 17th century.

His father, Giovanni Maria Legrenzi, had been a professional violinist and composer. One of his brothers, Marco, was also a talented musician. The brothers are believed to have been taught music at home and they became used to performing in their local church.

Giovanni Legrenzi became organist at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo and was ordained as a priest in 1651. He became resident chaplain at the church, but continued to be involved in music and was given the title of first organist in 1653. The music he composed for Mass and Vespers was published in 1654.

Legrenzi is believed to have been involved in a gambling scandal and his appointment as organist was not reconfirmed the following year, but the offence was not considered to be serious and he had been reinstated by February 1655.

However, towards the end of that year, Legrenzi had resigned from his position in Bergamo and in 1656 he became maestro di cappella  at the Academy of the Holy Spirit in Ferrara. The Academy was founded by a fraternity of laymen who presented services with music for members of aristocratic circles in Ferrara.

Legrenzi’s position at the Academy gave him time to compose his own music and by the early 1660s he had published eight volumes of his work and had broken into the world of opera.

The Via Arena entrance to the
Santa Maria Maggiore basilica

He ended his association with the Academy and supported himself with the proceeds of his published music and with his income from the land he owned in his native Clusone.

He had settled in Venice by 1670, where he took up a position as a music teacher at Santa Maria dei Derelitti, more commonly known as the Ospedaletto, where he received commissions to compose oratorios.

He was a finalist for the appointment of maestro di cappella The Basilica of San Marco in 1676, losing by one vote, but later in the year he became maestro di coro at the Ospedale dei Mendicanti.

He became vice maestro at San Marco in 1682 and, by this time, he was one of the leading opera composers of his day. Among his students were Francesco Gasparini and Tomaso Albinoni.

Legrenzi finally became maestro di cappella at San Marco in 1685 but by this time his health was beginning to fail. He died in 1690, probably due to kidney stones, which caused him a lot of pain in his last few months.

His great nephew inherited his music and his books and produced four publications of Legrenzi’s work posthumously. Some of the composer’s unpublished work still survives in manuscript form.

Legrenzi composed 19 operas between 1662 and 1685, which were very popular in their day, but only a few have survived. Early music groups still perform his instrumental music and some of his surviving operas are performed at festivals.

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