The Charterhouse of Padula
Come on vacation to one of Bellezza in Cilento’s properties and discover the Certosa di Padula, the second largest abbey in the world
The villas, cottages and apartments of Bellezza in Cilento are located in the vast territory that is home to the Cilento National Park, where there are many naturalistic and cultural beauties. The Park was honored by UNESCO in 1998 as a World Heritage Site and is currently one of 55 Italian sites that boast this very important international recognition. In this beautiful setting, I send you to spend your next vacation and discover the greatest monumental beauties found in the Cilento Park.
The Charterhouse of Padula covers more than 51,000 square meters in Padula, Vallo di Diano, and is the second largest abbey in the world. Work began in 1306 by the Sanseverino family, a rich and powerful family in the area. For centuries it was a very important religious and social reference point for the area, as many workers also flowed in who, under the monks’ directives, cultivated land and raised animals. The major Baroque remodeling that took place between the late 1500s and late 1600s shows us the Charterhouse as it has been in recent centuries.
Inside we find 3 cloisters, a garden, a church and a courtyard, as well as the 26 cells of the Carthusians, each with three or four rooms, a loggia and their own garden where they cultivated their vegetable garden. The large church, built in 1300 and renovated in 1600, is a Baroque masterpiece with gilded stucco, marble-inlaid altars and Vietri majolica floors. The refectory is completely paved with polychrome marble; on the sides it has a beautiful wooden choir, and on the ceiling plaster and gilded stuccoes. The kitchen was restored in 1700; it has a beautiful central hood with a large furnace, completely covered with Vietri majolica. All around sinks, work tables. The large cloister has enormous dimensions (measuring 104 by 150 meters) and all around are the 26 apartments reserved for the monks. Beautiful and peculiar is the elliptical Staircase from the late 1700s that connects the two floors of the Charterhouse.
In the early 1800s Napoleonic edicts confiscated everything from the monks, who were forced to leave the Charterhouse, only to return in 1821 with the Bourbons and then finally lose the use of the Charterhouse in 1866 with the suppression of the Order by the Kingdom of Italy. During the two world wars, given the vastness of the spaces, the Charterhouse was used as a prisoner concentration camp and since 1950 restoration work began to restore it to its present beauty.
