The Most Beautiful Carthusian Monasteries in Italy
5 places · updated 14 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful Carthusian monasteries in Italy are Certosa di Padula, Certosa di Pavia and Certosa di San Martino. The list covers 5 Carthusian monasteries. Last updated 14 October 2026.
The Carthusians, founded by Saint Bruno in 1084, lived as hermits in community: each monk had his own small house and garden opening onto a great cloister, and met the others only for prayer. In Italy, wealthy patrons turned these silent orders into showcases of art, so the charterhouses combine strict seclusion with marble, frescoes and princely scale.
The Certosa di Padula in Campania is one of the largest monasteries in the world, its great cloister lined with the monks' cells. The Certosa di Pavia, founded by Gian Galeazzo Visconti in 1396, has a sculpted marble facade that is a landmark of the Lombard Renaissance. The Certosa di San Martino in Naples sits on the Vomero hill with a view over the bay, its church richly decorated in the Baroque. The Florence Charterhouse at Galluzzo, founded in the 14th century by Niccolò Acciaiuoli, keeps frescoes by Pontormo.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Certosa di Padula | Carthusian monastery | ✓ |
| 2 | Certosa di Pavia | Carthusian monastery | |
| 3 | Certosa di San Martino | Carthusian monastery | |
| 4 | Florence Charterhouse | Carthusian monastery | |
| 5 | Pisa Charterhouse | Carthusian monastery |
01 Certosa di Padula
Italy · 36.1 km from Potenza40.337° N 15.652° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by gvizzari0 from Pixabay The monastery's working life is just as legible: the outer courtyard was lined with stables, granaries, a pharmacy, an olive press and cellars with enormous wine vats. Local legend claims that when Emperor Charles V stopped here with his army in 1535, the monks served him an omelette made with a thousand eggs. The Carthusians were expelled under Napoleonic rule in 1807, returned, and left for good in 1866; the charterhouse later served as a prison camp in both world wars. Since 1957 it has housed the provincial archaeological museum of western Lucania, and in 1998 it became part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Cilento and Vallo di Diano, together with Paestum and Velia.
Did you know? The elliptical grand staircase was designed by Gaetano Barba, a pupil of Luigi Vanvitelli, the architect of the royal palace at Caserta.
02 Certosa di Pavia
Italy · 24.3 km from Milan45.257° N 9.148° E
Image by Paskvi from Pixabay The monastery's later life was turbulent. Emperor Joseph II expelled the Carthusians in 1782, Napoleon's soldiers stripped the lead from the roof in 1796, and the state declared it a national monument in 1866. Since the 1960s the complex has been home to a Cistercian community.
Did you know? The Embriachi ivory triptych in the old sacristy stands about 2.5 metres high and combines 26 Magi panels with 36 reliefs from the lives of Christ and Mary.
03 Certosa di San Martino
Italy · 0.2 km from Naples40.843° N 14.241° E
Pinotto992 · Public domain The monks were expelled for good in 1866, and the buildings became the National Museum of San Martino, conceived by the archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli to tell the story of Naples and the southern kingdoms. It takes in the prior's quarters and old cells, with sections on carriages, naval history and Neapolitan painting, and a celebrated collection of nativity scenes. The loggia at the corner of the prior's apartment gives a sweeping view of the entire gulf.
Did you know? The Cuciniello nativity, given by a nineteenth-century Neapolitan playwright, has more than 170 figures, 80 animals, 28 angels and some 400 miniature objects.
04 Florence Charterhouse
Certosa di Firenze
Italy · 5.9 km from Florence43.731° N 11.221° E
Mattana · CC BY-SA 3.0 The greatest treasures are Pontormo's frescoes of the Passion, painted in 1523–25 for the cloister, where weather damaged them; they were detached in 1952 and now hang in the picture gallery in the upper floor of the palace. The complex, with its private cells set around a shared community space, inspired Le Corbusier in his urban projects. Cistercian monks took over from the Carthusians in 1958, and since 2017 the Comunità di San Leolino has cared for the complex.
Did you know? A hinged wall table in the monks' cells inspired furniture Le Corbusier designed for his housing block in Marseille.
05 Pisa Charterhouse
Certosa di Pisa
Italy · 9.9 km from Pisa43.722° N 10.523° E
Gianni Careddu · CC BY-SA 4.0 Since the 1980s the west wing has housed the Natural History Museum of the University of Pisa, whose collections began in the late 16th century as a cabinet of curiosities attached to Pisa's botanical garden. Its long gallery of whale and dolphin skeletons, set in a loggia under the roof with views over the olive groves, is among the most important collections of its kind in Europe.
Did you know? Bernardino Poccetti painted the Last Supper in the monks' refectory in 1597.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful Carthusian monasteries in Italy?
- On our list, Certosa di Padula ranks first, followed by Certosa di Pavia and Certosa di San Martino.
- What is a certosa?
- Certosa is the Italian word for a charterhouse, a monastery of the Carthusian order, named after the Chartreuse mountains near Grenoble where the order began.
- Who built the Certosa di Pavia?
- It was founded in 1396 by Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan, as a family mausoleum; work on the church and its facade continued well into the 16th century.
- How many Carthusian monasteries are on this list in Italy?
- The list covers 5 Carthusian monasteries.