The village took its name from its own monastery, and on its coat of arms it carries the letters GRA-CAR, that is Gratiarum Carthusia, the Charterhouse of the Graces. Gian Galeazzo Visconti founded it in 1396, on the northern edge of his hunting park, and it was consecrated a century later, in 1497. The Carthusians did not bring only a church: they introduced the water meadows, which allowed more than one cut of grass a year, and the conserve, underground chambers filled with ice in which to keep food.
Of the Visconti park, the Barco Novo, which stretched between the castle of Pavia and the Charterhouse, something remains in the middle of the built-up area: the gate that can be seen beside the church of San Michele Arcangelo once opened in the boundary wall of the reserve. The core of the village was called Torre del Mangano, after the family that owned the castle, and it took the name Certosa di Pavia only in 1929, when Torriano and Borgarello were joined to it as well; the latter became a comune of its own again in 1958.
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📅 Every year, on 29 September
On 29 September the municipality of Certosa di Pavia celebrates Saint Michael the Archangel; the village takes its name from the famous Certosa di Pavia monastery that stands beside it.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
