Description
The Cloisters of San Martino are part of the Certosa di San Martino, on the Vomero hill, with all of Naples at its feet. The largest is a portico of white and gray marble, among statues of saints and the monks' little cemetery.
The Great Cloister has sixty arches of white and gray marble and piperno. A marble floor plays on light and shadow, and on the balustrade of the upper floor stand eight full-length statues of saints, between marble spheres and cups.
Who designed it remains a mystery: Dosio, di Conforto or Cosimo Fanzago. For certain, Fanzago worked on the floor, the statues and the cemetery. Around it are the monks' cells, who received their meals through small windows beside the doors.
The Carthusians' cemetery, in a corner of the cloister, has marble skulls tied with ribbons beneath an elegant balustrade: a 17th-century memento mori, the work of Fanzago and the model for the one at the Certosa di Padula.
There is also a cistern from 1578, fifty meters deep and eight and a half wide, with a tuff staircase to go down. Water reached it through eight little windows: it did not purify it very well, but it is a masterpiece of hydraulic engineering.
The more intimate Cloister of the Procurators, from the late 16th century, has a portico with irregularly spaced arches, a well from 1605-1608 and coats of arms of the city.
The charterhouse was born in the 14th century at the wish of Robert of Anjou and his son Charles, with a single great cloister. For centuries, where the Procurators' cloister stands today, the monks grew vegetables and medicinal herbs.
On the twin doors of the cloister, in marble niches, emerge the busts of Saint Hugh, Saint Bruno and other saints, the work of Fanzago; those of Saint Martin and San Gennaro are by Vaccaro, from 1709. On the walls of the Procurators' cloister are sculptures and inscriptions placed in 1900, when the Museo Nazionale di San Martino was set up.
From 1578 the complex was enlarged with the works of Giovanni Antonio Dosio: the existing cloister was rebuilt and became the Great one, and the Procurators' cloister and the prior's quarter cloister were built.
The Great Cloister has sixty arches of white and gray marble and piperno. A marble floor plays on light and shadow, and on the balustrade of the upper floor stand eight full-length statues of saints, between marble spheres and cups.
Who designed it remains a mystery: Dosio, di Conforto or Cosimo Fanzago. For certain, Fanzago worked on the floor, the statues and the cemetery. Around it are the monks' cells, who received their meals through small windows beside the doors.
The Carthusians' cemetery, in a corner of the cloister, has marble skulls tied with ribbons beneath an elegant balustrade: a 17th-century memento mori, the work of Fanzago and the model for the one at the Certosa di Padula.
There is also a cistern from 1578, fifty meters deep and eight and a half wide, with a tuff staircase to go down. Water reached it through eight little windows: it did not purify it very well, but it is a masterpiece of hydraulic engineering.
The more intimate Cloister of the Procurators, from the late 16th century, has a portico with irregularly spaced arches, a well from 1605-1608 and coats of arms of the city.
The charterhouse was born in the 14th century at the wish of Robert of Anjou and his son Charles, with a single great cloister. For centuries, where the Procurators' cloister stands today, the monks grew vegetables and medicinal herbs.
On the twin doors of the cloister, in marble niches, emerge the busts of Saint Hugh, Saint Bruno and other saints, the work of Fanzago; those of Saint Martin and San Gennaro are by Vaccaro, from 1709. On the walls of the Procurators' cloister are sculptures and inscriptions placed in 1900, when the Museo Nazionale di San Martino was set up.
From 1578 the complex was enlarged with the works of Giovanni Antonio Dosio: the existing cloister was rebuilt and became the Great one, and the Procurators' cloister and the prior's quarter cloister were built.