Naples & Campania - Southern Italy - page 87

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Vomero

Visible from all over Naples, the stunning Certosa di San Martino is the one compelling
reason to take the funicular up to middle-class Vomero ( vom -e-ro).

Certosa e Museo di San Martino
MAP

MONASTERY, MUSEUM

GOOGLE MAP

( 848 800288; www.coopculture.it ; Largo San Martino 5; adult/reduced €6/3; 8.30am-7.30pm Thu-Tue, last
entry 6.30pm; Vanvitelli, funicular Montesanto to Morghen) The high point (quite literally) of the
Neapolitan baroque, this charterhouse-turned-museum was founded as a Carthusian mon-
astery in the 14th century. Decorated, adorned and altered over the centuries by some of
Italy's finest talent, most importantly Giovanni Antonio Dosio in the 16th century and
baroque master Cosimo Fanzago a century later, it's now a superb repository of Neapolit-
an artistry.
The monastery's church and the rooms that flank it contain a feast of frescoes and paint-
ings by some of Naples' greatest 17th-century artists, among them Francesco Solimena,
Massimo Stanzione, Giuseppe de Ribera and Battista Caracciolo. In the nave, Cosimo
Fanzago's inlaid marble-work is simply extraordinary.
Adjacent to the church, the Chiostro dei Procuratori is the smaller of the monastery's two
cloisters. A grand corridor on the left leads to the larger Chiostro Grande (Great Cloister),
considered one of Italy's finest. Originally designed by Dosio in the late 16th century and
added to by Fanzago, it's a sublime composition of Tuscan-Doric porticoes, garden and
marble statues. The sinister skulls mounted on the balustrade were a light-hearted remind-
er to the monks of their own mortality.
Just off the Chiostro dei Procuratori, the small Sezione Navale documents the history of the
Bourbon navy from 1734 to 1860, and features a small collection of beautiful royal
barges.
The Sezione Presepiale houses a whimsical collection of rare Neapolitan presepi (nativity
scenes) from the 18th and 19th centuries, including the colossal Cuciniello creation,
which covers one wall of what used to be the monastery's kitchen.