The Certosa di San Martino is one of the most monumental sites of Naples is by far one of the finest examples of Baroque art and architecture along with the Royal Chapel of the Treasure of San Gennaro. It is situated on the hill of Vomero, next to Castel Sant 'Elmo.

Since 1866, the Certosa monastery houses the Museum of San Martino.

History

In 1325, on top of the hill, Charles Duke of Calabria, eldest son of Robert of Anjou, built the monastery. I carthusians entered in the monastery in 1337 and the church was consecrated in 1368 under the reign of Joan of Anjou. At the end of the sixteenth century, the Certosa underwent a remodeling and expansion in late mannerist and Baroque style. The work was entrusted to Dosio  from 1589 to 1609. from 1618 to 1625 the direction of the site passed to Giovan Giacomo di Conforto; from 1623 to 1656 it passed to Cosimo Fanzago who left his artistic mark. In the first half of the eighteenth century the works went to Tagliacozzi Canale and Vaccaro. In 1799 the Carthusians were expelled for Jacobinism, returned in 1804 and after a while  were again expelled; in 1836 were again reinstated and finally expelled in 1866.

The square, the main courtyard and the church

On the square is the church of women made by the Dosio, and decorated with stucco in the seventeenth century. To the right is the entrance; in the lobby is located  an Angevin coat. The entrance leads to the courtyard of honor realized by Dosio. On the left, raises the fourteenth-century church rebuilt by Dosio (which adapts the porch with five  arches to three arches, drawing two chapels) and Cosimo Fanzago (who built a serliana to mask the lasta facade), the top and the walls are works of Tagliacozzi Canale . In the space between the front and serliana there are frescoes bofMicco Spadaro, Giovanni Baglione and Belisario Corenzio.

The interior
The church, with a single nave with four chapels (two of them are communicating with the first right and left), presents a high level of decoration at the turn of the sixteenth century and the eighteenth century. Cosimo Fanzago is the author of of the barriers and the decoration of the chapels of San Bruno and John the Baptist; always Fanzago are festoons of fruit on the four pillars and marble puttinis on the arches of the chapels.

Inside

The balustrade of the main altar (designed by G. Sanmartino on picture of Tagliacozzi Channel), the marble floor of the nave was made by Fra Bonaventura Presti who reused some of the inlaid marble of Fanzago. On either side of the Potala entrance are two statues of the same Fanzago, but were finished by Alessandro Rondone, still close to the portal are also two paintings by Jusepe de Ribera and above the door a deposition by Massimo Stanzione. The volta is enriched by a series of paintings by Giovanni Lanfranco that masks the structures at cross coverage.