Address: Galluzzo
The Certosa del Galluzzo rises on the summit of a hill to the
south of Florence. More than merely a monastery, it is more like
a monastic citadel or a fortress. The perfect model of a medieval
monastic existence with its implicit self-sufficient economic
organization, it was one of the most powerful monasteries in
Europe. Immensely wealthy, it housed hundreds of monks and other
ecclesiastics and, until the Napoleonic spoliations contained a
good five hundred works of art. Niccolò Acciaioli, one of
the most powerful Florentine citizens, built it in 1341 not only
as a religious centre but also for the education of the young.
Outside the conventual buildings rises the battlemented Acciaioli
Palace where the youth of Florence would be instructed in the
human sciences; unfortunately its huge library is now dispersed.
Visits to the monastery are guided by a monk. The church of Saint
Lawrence is typically Mannerist in style and filled with frescoes
and pictures, a sumptuous marble altar of the sixteenth century
and a crypt with many tombs mainly of the Acciaioli family. The
church gives access to the lovely Renaissance cloister with its
large terracotta well by Andrea and Giovanni della Robbia
(fifteenth-sixteenth century). The monks' cells open onto this
cloister, and those which are open to the public give a clear
idea of monastic life. Each consists of a room for sleeping and a
room for praying; their furnishing is severe but each has a tiny
enclosed garden. Apart from the large cloister the Chiostro dei
Conversi is open to the public. This is tiny and consists of two
superimposed loggias, and gives access to the refectory which is
decorated with a large lavabo in pietra serena and the pulpit
from which lessons were read during meals. Five fresco lunettes
by Pontormo showing scenes from Christ's Passion were originally
in the large cloister, but are now found in the monastery's
gallery with other works of art of the fourteenth-eighteenth
centuries.
A visit to the Certosa provides even today a valutable glimpse of
the monastic life, and a small group of Cistercian monks still
inhabit it. They still manage to be largely self-supporting and
maintain their old traditions such as the distillation of herb
liqueurs and the manufacture of small handmade religious
articles.
