Why go
The contrast between the larger Renaissance cloister and the smaller cloister’s Roman marble columns gives a concrete way to read the complex. Its history also explains why a monastery could become a source of tension on a small island, where land and grazing rights mattered to its neighbours.
The full story
The charterhouse was established in the fourteenth century by Giacomo Arcucci, an official associated with Joan I of Naples. Its spaces separated the monks’ buildings from areas serving guests and other functions. The two cloisters show different architectural treatments: the larger has a late Renaissance design, while Roman marble columns distinguish the smaller one. The monastery’s history was bound to Capri’s resources as well as its religious life. The monks held land and rights over grazing and hunting, which brought them into conflict with islanders. Fortification and restoration in the sixteenth century added another defensive layer to the complex. Its later cultural history includes the museum devoted to painter Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach, established in 1974. The surviving buildings therefore connect monastic enclosure, local power and the island’s subsequent artistic associations.