CERTOSA DI SAN LORENZO
Charterhouse dedicated to St. Lawrence, the largest in Italy with the largest cloister in Europe
Dedicated to Saint Lawrence, Italy's largest Carthusian monastery, with a surface area of 51,000m2, stands at the foot of Padula's historic center. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1998. Founded in 1306 by Count Sanseverino, it spans 500 years of history and style, until the religious order was abolished in 1807 during the Napoleonic period. Abandoned during the 19th century, the Padula Carthusian monastery became in turn a children's vacation center, a lazaretto, a prison camp during the Second World War... Restored in 1982, the monastic complex boasts over 300 rooms and the largest cloister in Europe, with a surface area of 15,000m2 and a gallery of 84 columns. It would take more than a day to visit it all: focus on the cloister, the convent's paneled library, the church with its Baroque interior adorned with marble, gilding and frescoes, whose bas-relief-carved wooden entrance door dates back to the 15th century, the kitchen with its grandiose fireplace (where, according to legend, a 1,000-egg omelette was prepared for Charles V in 1534), and finally the 18th-century elliptical grand staircase probably designed by Neapolitan architect Ferdinando Sanfelice.
Inside the monumental Carthusian monastery, you can also visit the Archaeological Museum of Lucanian Antiquities: interesting finds from the region, dating from prehistory to antiquity. A place of meditation well worth a visit.
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