The history of the Abbey of San Paolo d’Argon is almost a thousand years old. And it begins with the signing of a document that will determine its future developments. It is May 19th in 1079, when Giselberto, belonging to a branch of the family of the Counts of Bergamo, stipulates a deed of donation in favor of the convent of Saint Peter in Cluny. The subject of the document is a land adjacent to Mount Argon which will host a monastery dedicated to the Apostles Paul and Peter. The convent was built in a short time, so that the first evidence of its presence dates back to 1092.
Years, decades and centuries pass. The convent went through a period of relative decay, but in the fourteenth century something also changed due to the entry into the history of this place, of a figure related to the most famous Bergamo leader in local history. In 1466, by order of Pope Paul II, the monastery was given in commendation to Giovanni Battista Colleoni, nephew of Bartolomeo Colleoni. It was he, two decades later, who renounced the profit of the benefit and offered the convent to the Congregation of Santa Giustina of Padua, named Cassinese a few years later. The annexation was sanctioned on May 14th in 1496 with a bull of Alexander VII, which also establishes that the superior of the monastery holds the title of the abbe.
The new monks undertake to renovate the building, which keeps the structure unchanged until 1512, the year of the first reconstruction. With this intervention the small cloister was born, still admirable for the perfect Renaissance proportions, the elegance of the terracotta decorations and the refinement of the capitals of the columns: all elements that suggest the name of the greatest Bergamo architect of the time Pietro Isabello (or Cleri) called Abano, to whom the structure of subsequent rooms of the building belong.
From Isabello, Abbe Gregory of Mantua commissioned (between 1532 and 1536) the construction of the community refectory that opens on the southern side of the cloister, transformed into a chapel in the 1900s. It is probably Isabello who designed the second cloister of the convent, also wanted by Abbe Gregory in the same years. The initial project involved a square plan with 40 columns. The current shape, with 32 columns and rectangular shape, was defined at the time of construction, which took place during the Cassiodorus Abbey of Novara (1536-1540). Abbe Fulgentius of Mantua, head of the monastery from 1599 to 1602, had a new refectory built on the south-east side of the large cloister, intended to replace that of the minor cloister, the designer of which is unknown.
Between 1608 and 1613 the main courtyard of the convent was completed with the construction of the eastern part: in it there are three large rooms including the Chapter Hall. In the following years, the most significant intervention was due to the Abbe Barbisoni of Brescia, who between 1624 and 1627 commissioned the decoration of the lowered vault of the new refectory from the Veronese painter Giovanni Battista Lorenzetti.
On June 6th in 1797, Napoleon Bonaparte, encamped in Mombello, issued an order that led to the suppression of the monastery. The assets are confiscated by the Bergamo Hospital. Reduced to a farmhouse, in 1935 the monastery was bought by the spouses Giovanni and Luigina Prometti who donated it to Bishop Adriano Bernareggi. It will,eventually, be who will allocate the main body to the Patronato San Vincenzo of Don Bepo Vavassori. In 1978 the complex, again by Don Bepo, became a center of spirituality.
Between the 2008 and the 2012 it undergoes an impressive restoration work that brings the Abbey of San Paolo d’Argon back to its ancient splendor.
