Description
The Certosa di San Martino is a great Baroque monastery on the Vomero hill, beside Castel Sant'Elmo. It has about a hundred rooms, two churches, three cloisters and hanging gardens with a view over the whole gulf. Since 1866 it has also housed the museum that tells the story of the city.
The church is a triumph of polychrome marble, stucco and canvases. On the back wall of the choir is Guido Reni's Nativity, from 1642, paid for with more than 3,000 ducats; on the walls worked Ribera, Stanzione, Luca Giordano and Lanfranco.
The great cloister is by Dosio, completed by Cosimo Fanzago, with statues on the upper level and a small monks' cemetery, with a balustrade decorated with skulls and bones. The cloister of the procurators, instead, alternates white marble and gray piperno.
From the Prior's quarter, the prior's residence, a loggia looks onto the gulf; here remain eighteenth-century majolica floors and frescoes with chinoiserie. In the fathers' pharmacy, which dates to around 1699, there is a sketch of Corradini's Veiled Christ, the starting point for Sanmartino's in the Sansevero Chapel.
Beneath the Certosa the Gothic undergrounds have been open to the public only since 2015: pillars and pointed vaults more than 15 meters high, and about 150 inscriptions and sculptures. Outside, the hanging gardens, seven hectares in size, descend in terraces to the monks' vineyards, with the Way of the Cross along the wall.
It all began in 1325, when Charles of Anjou, son of King Robert, had a monastery built at the top of the hill for the Carthusians. Tino di Camaino, who was also working on the nearby castle, designed it.
From the end of the sixteenth century, with the Counter-Reformation, the Certosa changed its face: Dosio redid the cloister and added cells for the monks, and then came Cosimo Fanzago, with marble, busts and fruit festoons everywhere. Fanzago worked there from 1623 to 1656 and also redid the church's facade. In 1866 the Certosa passed to the State and became a museum.
In the sacristy the walls have cupboards with inlays by Flemish artists, and the vault is frescoed by the Cavalier d'Arpino with the stories of Christ's Passion. Fanzago's “L”-shaped corridor links the church to the cloisters and to the Prior's quarter.
Don't miss
• The church and Guido Reni's Nativity.
• The great cloister.
• The Prior's quarter with the loggia over the gulf.
• The hanging gardens.
Did you know?
• Women could not enter the Certosa: for them there was a separate church, the church of the Women, near the entrance.
• The coats of arms of the city districts in the cloister of the procurators were brought here during the Risanamento of Naples.
The church is a triumph of polychrome marble, stucco and canvases. On the back wall of the choir is Guido Reni's Nativity, from 1642, paid for with more than 3,000 ducats; on the walls worked Ribera, Stanzione, Luca Giordano and Lanfranco.
The great cloister is by Dosio, completed by Cosimo Fanzago, with statues on the upper level and a small monks' cemetery, with a balustrade decorated with skulls and bones. The cloister of the procurators, instead, alternates white marble and gray piperno.
From the Prior's quarter, the prior's residence, a loggia looks onto the gulf; here remain eighteenth-century majolica floors and frescoes with chinoiserie. In the fathers' pharmacy, which dates to around 1699, there is a sketch of Corradini's Veiled Christ, the starting point for Sanmartino's in the Sansevero Chapel.
Beneath the Certosa the Gothic undergrounds have been open to the public only since 2015: pillars and pointed vaults more than 15 meters high, and about 150 inscriptions and sculptures. Outside, the hanging gardens, seven hectares in size, descend in terraces to the monks' vineyards, with the Way of the Cross along the wall.
It all began in 1325, when Charles of Anjou, son of King Robert, had a monastery built at the top of the hill for the Carthusians. Tino di Camaino, who was also working on the nearby castle, designed it.
From the end of the sixteenth century, with the Counter-Reformation, the Certosa changed its face: Dosio redid the cloister and added cells for the monks, and then came Cosimo Fanzago, with marble, busts and fruit festoons everywhere. Fanzago worked there from 1623 to 1656 and also redid the church's facade. In 1866 the Certosa passed to the State and became a museum.
In the sacristy the walls have cupboards with inlays by Flemish artists, and the vault is frescoed by the Cavalier d'Arpino with the stories of Christ's Passion. Fanzago's “L”-shaped corridor links the church to the cloisters and to the Prior's quarter.
Don't miss
• The church and Guido Reni's Nativity.
• The great cloister.
• The Prior's quarter with the loggia over the gulf.
• The hanging gardens.
Did you know?
• Women could not enter the Certosa: for them there was a separate church, the church of the Women, near the entrance.
• The coats of arms of the city districts in the cloister of the procurators were brought here during the Risanamento of Naples.