Certosa di Pisa

The Certosa di Pisa, also known as Certosa di Calci, is a former Carthusian monastery, currently the home of the Museum of Natural History of the Territory of Calci, located in the "comune" of Calci, some 10 km outside Pisa, Tuscany, Italy.

The monastery is noted for the fresco, the "Last Supper", by Bernardino Poccetti (1597), in the refectory.

History

The monastery

The monastery was founded as Carthusian in 1366 in what is called Val Graziosa, a plain overlooked by the Monti Pisani ("Pisan Mountains"). [cite book|title=The Riviera, Or The Coast from Marseilles to Leghorn: Including the Interior Towns of Carrara, Lucca, Pisa and Pistoia|first=Charles Bertram|last=Black|publisher=Adam & Charles Black|location=London|date=1898|pages=page 156] Francesco Moricotti Prignani was archbishop of Pisa. In the 14th century, Pope Gregory XI, a noted reformer of monasteries, expelled the monks from the Benedictine monastery of Gorgona, Italy, and gave the island and the estate to the Carthusians of Calci, who repopulated them. [cite book|pages=pages 316-317|title=The History of St. Catherine of Siena and Her Companions: With a Translation of Her Treatise on Consummate Perfection|first=Augusta Theodosia|last=Drane|Publisher=Longmans, Green, and co.|date=1899] This event must have happened not long before Catherine of Siena's visit of 1375, as she mentions in her letters the need to convert the facilities. [Benedictines were male-only. Carthusians allowed a female branch.] Benedictines were barred from the island.

In 1425, the Mediterranean reached a peak of political instability. The peace and safety of the monks on Gorgona could no longer be assured. Fearing a Saracen attack they abandoned the monastery and took up residence at Calci, bringing the records from Gorgona with them, to be duly published at Pisa.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the complex was renovated, receiving the current Baroque appearance.

The museum

In 1981, the University of Pisa moved its natural history museum here. the collection had been started in Pisa in the 16th century as a collection of curiosities connected to the Giardino dei Semplici. It houses now one of the largest collection of cetaceans skeletons in Europe, while halls dedicated to dinosaurs are being set up.

Notes

External links

* [http://storianaturale.museo.unipi.it/ Museum's website]