Certosa di Pavia

Carthusian Monastery Founded In 1396 As The Visconti Mausoleum, With A Marble Encrusted Renaissance Facade And A Great Cloister Of Twenty Four Monks' Houses · Certosa di Pavia, Lombardy

The Visconti began this as a family mausoleum in 1396 and the Sforza carried on paying for it, and the result is a Carthusian monastery with a facade so encrusted with coloured marble, inlay, medallions and figures that it looks less built than assembled. It took about a century and a half and the top was never finished, which is why the front stops abruptly halfway up and nobody has ever felt the need to complete it. Inside, the church is Gothic in its bones and Renaissance in everything applied to it, with a Perugino panel, a Bergognone cycle and the tomb of Ludovico il Moro and Beatrice d'Este, who are buried here rather than in Milan. Behind the church the great cloister runs round twenty-four separate small houses, each with its own garden and a hatch in the wall through which a silent monk was passed his food. It is still a working monastery, the visit is guided by a monk, and there is no ticket.

Viale Monumento 4, Certosa di Pavia, Lombardy, 27012, Italy

NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED, and the hours here answer to the monastic day rather than to a museum timetable. The structure: guided visits run in the morning and again in the afternoon with a FIRM MIDDAY CLOSURE, at set start times, free with a donation, and led by a monk. The whole place closes on Mondays in most seasons and visits are curtailed on Sundays and feast days when services take priority. Winter hours are shorter. Confirm the visit times before travelling.

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