Description
The Certosa di Garegnano is a monastery founded in 1349 by Giovanni Visconti, archbishop and lord of Milan, once out in open country and today in the Garegnano neighborhood, northwest of the city. Off the usual routes, it hides a church with frescoes of great quality, from the 16th to the 17th century.
Before the church you cross two courtyards, the Cortile dell'Elemosina and the Cortile d'Onore, onto which opens a facade crowded with statues, obelisks and flames. Inside, the single nave has two fresco cycles: in the presbytery, those by Simone Peterzano, Caravaggio's teacher, from 1578; on the walls, the Stories of Saint Bruno by Daniele Crespi.
Crespi signed them in 1629, a year before he died of the plague. Among the scenes is a Parisian doctor who rises at his own funeral to announce that he is damned.
In the summer of 1357 the Certosa hosted Petrarch, and centuries later Lord Byron was struck by its frescoes.
Before the church you cross two courtyards, the Cortile dell'Elemosina and the Cortile d'Onore, onto which opens a facade crowded with statues, obelisks and flames. Inside, the single nave has two fresco cycles: in the presbytery, those by Simone Peterzano, Caravaggio's teacher, from 1578; on the walls, the Stories of Saint Bruno by Daniele Crespi.
Crespi signed them in 1629, a year before he died of the plague. Among the scenes is a Parisian doctor who rises at his own funeral to announce that he is damned.
In the summer of 1357 the Certosa hosted Petrarch, and centuries later Lord Byron was struck by its frescoes.