Borgo Pusterla or Borgo San Marco is the part of the historic center of Vicenza that developed - during the Middle Ages and especially during the modern age - along the ancient road that led north out of the city from Porta Pusterla, in the area between the Bacchiglione river to the south, the Venetian fortified walls (the present-day Viale Bartolomeo D'Alviano and Viale Fratelli Bandiera) to the north and the Astichello river to the east.
History
Roman era
Until the end of the first millennium, the whole area was marshland and subject to frequent flooding from the torrential river Astico, which at that time flowed roughly in the present-day bed of the Astichello. Before reaching the city, where it encountered a hill - formed by debris carried by its own waters - that forced it to deviate towards the east, the Astico widened to an average width of 700–800 meters and a length of a few kilometers, in a marshy strip called Lacus Pusterlae, although there is a lack of early medieval sources documenting its existence..
Given the condition of the terrain, the area was probably not inhabited, but a road - an extension of the cardo maximus or in any case of one of the cardines of the Roman city - started from a passage or a gate in the city walls and headed north, along the lake and then the right bank of the Astico towards Montecchio Precalcino, and finally up into Valdastico..
Middle Ages
The hydrographic layout remained unchanged until the end of the 11th century, when the inhabitants of Vicenza themselves, to reduce the danger of the recurring floods of the Astico,According to , this intervention was made necessary by natural hydrological events that occurred in the first half of the century, when the Leogra, Timonchio, and Orolo rivers overflowed their beds, swelling the Astico with disastrous consequences for the city. diverted its course north of Montecchio Precalcino and directed it towards the Tesina, allowing only a part of the water to reach Vicenza, namely the Astichello, which continued to flow in the old riverbed.
The spring waters that flowed near Dueville, swollen by the Igna, Timonchio and Orolo rivers, allowed the formation of a new watercourse, the Bacchiglione, which flowed down from the north towards the city; compared to the Astico it was much less impetuous and a little less subject to flooding. At the end of the 12th century the rivers of Vicenza had by then reached their current layout and name. After this deviation, what remained - that is, the Astichello river - no longer had enough flow to feed the lake, which slowly began to dry up. When the lake was mentioned in documents in the 14th century, it was limited to a small area north of the city that, even today, is called Laghetto..
It was probably at this time that the Borgo Pusterla began to take shape and grow. Initially subject, from an ecclesiastical point of view, to the ancient little church of San Lorenzo in Porta Nova, it became a parish when the first church of San MarcoAccording to Mantese, San Marco was built and began to be listed among the seven chapels of the city around 1280, when San Lorenzo was exchanged with the Franciscans who intended to build the new large church of their Order in its place () was built just outside the bridge, now necessary to cross the Bacchiglione. The church of San Marco was located in an inhospitable area that was often subject to flooding; it therefore had to be restored several times over the centuries. It depended on the cathedral and therefore had no baptismal font; it functioned as a parish church until 1810, when - after the Napoleonic suppression of religious orders - it was exchanged with that of the Discalced Carmelites and, immediately afterwards, demolished.
It is documented that at the beginning of the 13th century there was a wooden bridge with three arches, which was rebuilt in Montecchio stone in 1231The Municipality of Montecchio, for a certain crime committed against the capital, was condemned by the Municipality of Vicenza to supply and transport to the site the precious stones extracted from its quarries: and which in the Statutes of the Municipality of Vicenza of 1264 was called Ponte Vetus (“old bridge”), that is, the Pusterla bridge. At the end of the bridge there was a tower with a drawbridge and a portcullis.For the history of the Ponte Pusterla see Franco Barbieri, L'immagine urbana, in Storia di Vicenza, II, Il Medioevo, Vicenza, Neri Pozza editore, 1988, note 56 on p. 260
Meanwhile, a few hundred meters further on, at the beginning of the century, the monastery of San Bartolomeo had been built, which served as the main seat of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine of the Congregation of San Marco of Mantua; the monastery was for both men and women, but they lived in separate environments and had two different priors.
At the beginning of the 14th century, however, there are reports of the existence of a hospital, more or less in the area where the convent of San Francesco Nuovo was later built, run by a confraternity of Battuti, which certainly had its own church nearby.;
15th century
In 1404 the Borgo was the theater of war between the Carraresi of Padua and the Visconti. Francesco III da Carrara had set up camp in the Borgo to besiege Vicenza and, towards the end of April, launched a furious attack against Porta Pusterla, without however succeeding in conquering it and entering the city. In the meantime, however, the people of Vicenza had ended their allegiance to Venice and the Paduan condottiero was forced to lift the siege and withdraw, to avoid a confrontation with the Serenissima.The account of the siege and the battle are by the historian , , Padova 1842, pp. 292-302, quoted by
In 1419, by order of Pope Martin V, who intended to abolish double monasteries, San Bartolomeo became a monastery for men only: the regular canons who came from the monastery of San Tommaso moved there, while the nuns moved to San Bartolomeo. This concentration didn't favor San Bartolomeo, however, which, reduced to a minimum with only three monks, was given in commendam in 1435, first to Ermolao Barbaro, bishop of Verona, then to the regular canons of Santa Maria di Frigionaia near Lucca, who took care of restoring it both spiritually and materially. The church was almost completely remodeled and rebuilt, with the addition of chapels and altars, commissioned and financed by noble families of the city; ten years later the monastery housed about fifteen clergymen.
Under the rule of Venice the area became increasingly populated and the Republic planned to fortify it. First it restored the Porta di Pusterla, which had been destroyed during the war with the Da Carrara family, then it dug a ditch that went from the Porta di Santa Lucia to the convent of San Bartolomeo; next to the latter in 1435 a large gate was built, which still exists today - albeit with a reduced height, without the tower and the drawbridge and with a bailey on only three sides - Porta di San Bortolo, restored in the 1990s.
A further project planned to connect this gate with that of Santa Croce by means of walls, but it was never carried out. Along this route, the previous ditch was extended,The ditch that started from Santa Croce, in continuity with the one that started from Santa Lucia and drained the water into Bacchiglione after having passed the eastern Scaliger walls, was fed first by the Riello irrigation ditch and then, from 1539, by the Astichello, which - often revitalized by the waters of the Astico for the floating of wood - was partially diverted into the ditch halfway between the gates of San Bortolo and Santa Lucia. and a terreplein and five small circular towers were built inside it - a shape more suitable for the time when artillery and firearms were already in use - as requested by Bartolomeo d'Alviano. In any case, this partial fortification marked the border of the Borgo forever.
Meanwhile, around 1430, the Jesuati arrived in Vicenza. From 1499 they were friars of the congregation of St. JeromeOver time, the Jesuati were forced to transform themselves from a free lay society into a mendicant order: Pope Alexander VI gave them the title of "Jesuati of St. Jerome" in 1499; Pope Julius II forced them to take religious vows in 1511; Pope Clement VII granted them the privileges of hermits in 1532; and finally, in 1567, Pope Pius V included them among the mendicant orders. who, first as guests at the castle of the noble Valmarana family and then at the hospital of Santa Maria della Misericordia, following successive exchanges of goods left to them by pious testatorsAbout halfway between San Marco and San Bartolomeo, where the Church of San Marco and the Convent of the English Ladies now stand. built the church, which was consecrated in 1491, and their monastery respectively in the space of a few decades. The Jesuati lived very poorly, providing a stable testimony of Christian life that lasted until the Council of Trent..
In addition to the hospital of Santa Maria della Misericordia, in the 15th century there was a small hospital with a church dedicated to Saint Mary in Pusterla in Borgo - in the place where the church and monastery of Saint Francis of the Poor Clares would later be built. It was the subject of a long dispute between the Confraternity of Saint Mary, St. Bartholomew and St. MarkThe Confraternity originated from the Brotherhood of the Battuti. - which managed it - and the Benedictine nuns of St. Catherine in ; in the end the rights of the Confraternity were recognized, and in 1503 it sold the hospital to the Poor Clares, who founded the monastery of San Francesco Nuovo there.According to Mantese, Vicenza historian F. Barbaran and others confused the documents, leading to misinterpretations.
Modern Age: 16th-18th Centuries
Monasteries
A century later the Borgo was still an area of monasteries.
Around 1500, on the site of an older monastery dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi, a new church was built at the expense of the Vicentine nobleman Carlo VolpeThe one who ordered the construction of the portal of the church of San Bernardino and of Santa Chiara in the Borgo Berga. and, at the same time, a monastery dedicated to the same saint was built next to it, where a group of Poor Clares came from , where the monastery of San Bernardino had become too small. The initiative for the construction was taken by five noblemen from Vicenza,Giacomo and Leonardo Thiene, Tommaso Scroffa, Cristoforo Barbaran and Giacomo Gualdo who in 1497 had purchased, for the price of 600 ducats, unum sedimen magnum in the Borgo of Pusterla, with houses, a courtyard, a vegetable garden, a well and an oven, surrounded partly by walls and partly by a hedge.
According to the papal bull issued by Pope Alexander VI, the monastery was to be built on a decent and honorable site, with a church, humble bell towers, a bell, a dormitory, a refectory, a cemetery, vegetable gardens, orchards and other necessary facilities. However, the construction costs didn't prove to be a problem and the monastery was soon built, so that in 1503 six nuns entered, all from noble families in the city; this first group soon grew and at times the number of nuns reached 70, in addition to the choir girls and lay sisters..
As for San Bartolomeo, various documents show that in the second half of the 16th century the monastery was in a relatively good condition, with an internal school and a library of a certain importance, a conspicuous patrimony that could boast the highest income among the other Vicentine monasteries after that of San Felice, and buildings in excellent condition. It could also count on its direct links with the Holy See and its relative support..