The Charterhouse of St.James

Starting from the little square (Piazzetta) and going on through Vittorio Emanuele’s street until come to the crossing with Charterhouse’s street and Matteotti avenue, you arrive at the Chartehouse going along a lane, just Certosa’s street, that leads through a walled up passage to the building. The Charterhouse of St.James, in Capri, was built around 1371 in a valley called Sama or Lama, exposed to the south bordering on the sea and it is far from the inhabited centre. The building is located on a soil given from the Queen Joan I of Anjou; this building was built thanks to the earl Giacomo Arcucci that consacreted it to the apostle St.James. When the Queen died, the earl Arcucci suffered the confiscation of his property and he decided to retire into the Chartehouse where he died in 1397 looked after by the friars. In the sixteenth century, after the devastation and the fires caused by Dragut the pirate, were executed wide restorations that lasted about a century. After, in order to defend theirselves from the raids was built a protected tower that was destroyed at the beginning of the nineteenth century because of the subsiding rock below. In 1808, when the French confiscated the property of the Charterhouse, all the documents preserved in this building were sold to the local shopkeeper as wrapping paper. Subsequently the building was used for military aims. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Italian State put up for auction the complex because Italy did not want sustain the maintenance charges and for this reason the building was nearly sold to a hoteliers society that wanted change it in a hotel when it was set under the protection of the Ministry of Education. In the Charterhouse, during the 1st World War, the infantry regiment was settled down. During the 20s, Edwin Cerio was able to pass the building under the protection of the Ministry of Antiquity and of the Fine Arts. In 1936 both the Municipal Library and the Liceo Classico (specializing in classical studies) Publio Virgilio Marone were opened in some premises. The building of two storeys, that was on the left crossing of the avenue leading with that of the Charterhouse, housed the ancient chemist’s shop that provided medicines also to the islanders. The building on the right, on the contrary, housed the chapel of women out of seclusion. In the large central hall Diefenbach the painter furnished his studio because he needed a suitable room for his huge paintings. The Church portal, in white marble, is surmounted by a lunette that shows a fresco of the fourteenth century representing the Virgin with the Child. At the sides of the Virgin are portrayed, on one side, St.Bruno with the Queen Joan and, on the other St.James with the earl Arcucci. The church is constituted by a rectangular hall covered with cross vaults. These vaults, about the end of the seventeenth century, were covered again with sloping roofs and they remained in this way until the restoration of the 1927. Apart from the sloping roof removal, in 1927 was pointed out the Gothic rose window and the big architectonic windows were reopened in Gothic style as well. In the church, till 1890 were set funerary monuments of Giacomo Arcucci and his nephew Vincenzo and also the silver statue of St.James, now preserved in the church of St.Stefan. The complex includes also two cloisters, one i big and the other is little. In the big one there is an arcade covered with cross vaults; the wide surface at the centre of it, instead, once was took up by open green spaces that were arranged into mechanical drawings. On three sides there were the friars twelvw cells; at present the cells on the left side are occupied by the classrooms of the Liceo Classico. Every cell was composed by two rooms, one where the friar collected his thoughts in prayer and the other where he rested. Every residential complex had little garden nearby that was hidden by high walls. On the left side there was the monks graveyard and a well that drew water from the tank below. On the other side there were the prior’s stacks. The little cloister shows five arches in conformity with the church length and four arches in the other; these arches are supported by columns. Even in the minor cloister there is a tank that doesn’t work from the end of the nineteenth century.  

Closely examination

*To visit the Charterhouse:

*opened all days except on Monday

*Winter timetable: 9.00-14.00 (13.00 on Sunday)

*Summer timetable: 9.00- up to sunset

*Free admittance

*The building includes the Municipal Library too (opened on Tuesday,

Thursday and Saturday from 17.00 to 20.00), a picture collection including

those of Diefenbach, a german painter and an ethnographical museum.