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   The Charterhouse of San Giacomo |
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Built in 1371-74 under the initiative of Count Giacomo Arcucci
of Capri, Secretary to Jeanne, Queen of Naples, it was devastated
in 1553 by the Saracen pirate Dragut. In 1563, after yet another
in a long series of pirate raids, the Carthusian monks in residence
built a fortified tower; when this collapsed in 1808, its ruins
blocked (according to local legend) the entrance to a cave below,
known as the Grotta Oscura. After the confiscation of ecclesiastical property in 1807, the Charterhouse was used as a barrack, and then, in 1815, as a jail. Later, it became a rest home, and in 1860 a military hospital. Partially restored in 1924, it is currently the site of the Municipal Library and the Preparatory School, in addition to which it holds temporary exhibitions; inside there is also a museum with some large canvases by the German painter Wilhelm Diefenbach, a member of the European symbolist school from the end of the XIXth century who lived in Capri for many years. One room holds a number of large statues from the Roman age, found covered with limestone incrustations on the sea floor of the Grotta Azzurra, cave in 1964. The convent was designed in a grid pattern that included the small, late XlVth-century cloister and the large cloister (late XVIth century), around which were grouped the monk's cells, the prior's quarters, the capitular room and a series of corridors, rooms, storage spaces and small gardens where the Carthusians carried out their day-to-day activities. The church, built with a single large nave covered by three cross-vaults and lit by large, Gothic single-mullion windows, holds the remains of frescoes from the end of the 1600's. On the ogival front door of the church are bas-relief figures of St. Brunone and St. Giacomo (James); in the lunette, a fresco from the end of the XIVth century depicts the Madonna with the Christ child on a throne between St. Brunone and St. Giacomo (James). An isolated element rich in baroque motifs is the clock Tower, whose spire resembles the iron well-ring, a typical product of Capri's craftsmen. The Charterhouse is the most significant example of Capri's architecture, especially in its oldest portion, where the roof made of extrados vaults, typical of popular architecture in the Gulf of Naples, is preserved. Restoration work is under way on the interior of the structure following a long period of deterioration and abandonment. F. GREGOROVIUS, 1853 The Certosa is the only structure in Capri with a gothic roof covered in red tiles. Entering the cloister, one is met with the pleasant view of a spacious area surrounded by an arcade. It is the monastic cells, the small courtyards and the gardens, now abandoned and grown over with thick vegetation, that make this monastery a particularly romantic labyrinth.. |
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