Certosa di Padula

The Certosa di San Lorenzo at Padula, in the Vallo di Diano of southern Campania, is the largest charterhouse in Italy and one of the grandest in Europe: about 51,500 square metres of cloisters, gardens, courtyards and some 320 rooms, spread out at the foot of the hill town of Padula. It was founded in 1306 by Tommaso Sanseverino, lord of the valley and a loyal supporter of the Angevin kings of Naples, on the site of an older monastic grange. Dedicating it to the Carthusians, a French order, was also a political gesture towards the French-born dynasty.

Almost nothing of the Gothic foundation shows today. From 1583 until the late eighteenth century the monks rebuilt the complex in the Baroque manner, adding a facade crowned with statues and pinnacles that was finished only in 1723, and an elliptical grand staircase in an octagonal tower, completed in 1779 as the last major work before the monks were expelled. A separate spiral staircase of white marble leads up to the library. As at other charterhouses, the plan is traditionally said to recall the gridiron on which Saint Lawrence was martyred. The great cloister, ringed by 84 columns, is often described as the largest in the world; around it stand the monks' individual cells. Inside, look for the library floor of Vietri majolica tiles and the altar frontals in the side chapels, which are not marble at all but eighteenth-century scagliola, coloured plaster polished to imitate inlaid stone.

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.

Getting there

The charterhouse stands on the edge of Padula in the province of Salerno. The nearest large city is Potenza, about 36 km away as the crow flies. Salerno Costa d'Amalfi Airport (QSR) is about 70 km away; Naples International Airport (NAP), with many more flights, is about 130 km away.