History

The Certosa di Calci was established in 1366 through the generosity of Pietro Gambacorti, a wealthy Pisan merchant, who donated the land and the initial endowment. The Carthusians, who had been founded in 1084 by Bruno of Cologne and practiced the strictest solitude of any western order, found the isolated wooded slopes of Monte Pisano perfectly suited to their life: each monk lived alone in his cell, met his brothers only for liturgical offices, and communicated with the outside world only through a rotating cupboard (the tournette) set into his cell wall. The community grew throughout the 15th century and undertook major building campaigns in the 16th–17th centuries, when the church, the great cloister, and the corridors received their spectacular Baroque decoration. The frescoes, commissioned from leading Florentine and Pisan painters, depict the life of the Virgin, the life of St Bruno, scenes from Carthusian history, and allegories of the monastic virtues; they cover virtually every ceiling and wall in the public areas.

After the Napoleonic suppression the buildings were used variously as a prison, a granary, and a military storehouse, suffering considerable damage. The Carthusians briefly returned (1866), were again expelled in 1880, and did not return. The University of Pisa acquired the complex in 1979 and undertook an extensive restoration; the Natural History Museum was installed in the former cells and the church was reopened to the public. The combination of Baroque splendour and zoological curiosity — a whale skeleton in a vaulted Baroque room, a fossil mastodon in an 18th-century pharmacy — is unique in Italy.