Based on data taken from ancient publications, this monastery should have been settled on the foundation of a previous building: an abbey or a church of Saint Innocents.

      It seems that the monastery building was made under the patronage of the Dominican bishop of Bergamo: friar Erbordo Ungaro (1260-72) or even after the initiative of the previous bishop, the Dominican friar Algisio da Rosate (1251-58), provided that one consider the year 1258 as the year in which constructions were started.As the foundation year is missing, the most ancient document is the one stating the dedication of the Church made by the bishop Guiscardo Suardi, on 25th March 1273.

      Enlarged thanks to the adding of other convents of nuns, the Matris Domini Monastery should have been built anew, both as a monastery and as a church in 1359.Other restorations were made too in XVI century; between 1606 and 1670 extension and embellishment works were performed and the Church was remade and adorned with stuccoes.Further extensions of the perimeter external to the enclosure area were made between 1747 and 1750 plus some touch-ups within the church. In 1797, the Cisalpine Republic suppressed the Monastery, expropriating it from all its wealth.

      However, it allowed that nuns could go on living in its premises together with sisters of other suppressed convents.In 1832 the Austrians turned it into a military hospital and in 1835 it was open again to the religious practices. Some restorations in the chapels of the convent seem to resort to 1890 and some further works to the church resort to 1902. During the second world war, in 1944, a part of the building was requisitioned by the German command, which turned it into a political prison.

      Located in the downtown of Bergamo, the Monastery wants to express to all people its function of memory of God, remembering the fundamental need of God in the heart of every person. The vitality that the contemplative life irradiates on the town wants to be also a reference point for the human life of faith and prayer of all people.To-day the Matris Domini Monastery is a location of life, silence and contemplative prayer which incarnated Saint Dominick charisma in its everyday life.The nuns are engaged in co-operating to the building of the Kingdom of God, so that the world may discover the essential values which allow all people to find their realisation. In the theological and cultural research, as well as in spirituality, the nuns realise their apostolic vocation and create within the Monastery a context where the mutual life has the priority.

      Within the Monastery, they live simply and soberly, but their life is full with the desire to help other people to discover or get reconfirmed in their interior freedom. The work is made by different tasks and allows every nun to co-operate in implementing the mutual good, mutually searching the face of Christ.

Contemplative prayer and Dominican life

      “The fact you are contemplative nuns does not involve a drastic departure from world or apostolate. Contemplation has to find its specific way for extending God’s kingdom, for cooperating in the building of terrestrial town ... You have to find out your lifestyle that, within a contemplative view, can help you sharing God’s free gifts together with your brothers and sisters”. (John Paul II, in Letter to Dominican nuns by Father P. Damian Byrne M.O.).

      The contemplative life is on the core of the Order’s mission. Thanks to our way of living, we announce to all people that God is able to take possession of human heart. The intercession prayer looks like a shout issued in order that the Word announced by preachers can be received by the world. The Dominican community is a praying community, which is organized in view of a contemplation which flows, in different ways, into the preaching. A daily application of prayer with all its expressions, favors the union and harmony of life. It mainly focuses to the community celebration of Eucharistic mystery and of praise to God.

      During this life of prayer, the community, vitally involved and docile to the Spirit, is transformed. In addition, it makes St. Dominick’s anxiety for brothers’ salvations its own anxiety. During the public celebration of liturgy, the community witnesses its own charisma and expresses also its apostolic opening, by finding ways and times to involve other believers in the same prayer.