Pisa Charterhouse

thumb|250px|Façade of the main building of 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.
==Charterhouse==
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.Carthusians needed individual hermitages, whereas Benedictines lived a more communal life 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.
==Museum==
In 1981, the University of Pisa moved its natural history museum here. The collection had been started in Pisa in the 16th century as a collection of curiosities connected to the Giardino dei Semplici. It now houses one of the largest collection of cetaceans skeletons in Europe, while halls dedicated to dinosaurs are being set up.
==Notes==
==External links==
*Museum's website
Category:1366 establishments
Category:Monasteries in Tuscany
Category:Carthusian monasteries in Italy
Category:Buildings and structures in Tuscany
Category:University of Pisa
Category:University museums in Italy
Category:Natural history museums in Italy
Category:Museums established in 1981
Category:Fresco paintings
it:Certosa di Pisa