Pisa Charterhouse

Pisa Charterhouse, also known as Calci Charterhouse (Certosa di Pisa, Certosa di Calci), is a former Carthusian monastery, or charterhouse, currently the home of the Museo di storia naturale e del territorio dell'Università di Pisa ("Museum of Natural History and of the Territory of the University of Pisa"), located in the comune of Calci, some 10 km outside Pisa, Tuscany, Italy.

The monastery is noted for the fresco of the Last Supper, by Bernardino Poccetti (1597), in the refectory.

The Carthusians founded a monastery in 1366/67 in what is called Val Graziosa, a plain overlooked by the Monti Pisani ("Pisan Mountains"), when Francesco Moricotti Prignani was archbishop of Pisa. Shortly afterwards Pope Gregory XI, a noted reformer of monasteries, expelled the monks from the Benedictine Gorgona Abbey, on the island of Gorgona, and gave the island and the estate to the Carthusians of Val Graziosa, who repopulated them. This event must have happened not long before Catherine of Siena's visit of 1375, as she mentions in her letters the need to convert the facilities for the Carthusian use. Benedictines were barred from the island.

In 1425, the Mediterranean reached a peak of political instability. The peace and safety of the monks on Gorgona could no longer be assured. Fearing a Saracen attack they abandoned the monastery and took up residence at Calci, bringing the records from Gorgona with them, to be duly published at Pisa.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the complex was renovated, receiving its current Baroque appearance.

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