LA CERTOSA DI PAVIA 



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which add much to the effect of the whole. From the cloister is a splendid view of the outside 

 of the church, with all its graceful spirelets and elegant colonnades, its harmonious grouping 

 of masses and variety of lines imparting quite a gay note, and giving lightness to the entire 

 construction. 



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Upon the south side of the small cloister is a handsome lavabo, and near by a passage 

 leads to the great cloister, prodigious in its dimensions and very singular in its effect, surrounded 

 by twenty-three dwellings of the monks, each with its quaint little garden and simple balustrade, 

 with high enclosing walls, where each passed his entire existence ; for the Carthusian led a life of 

 solitude, changing the company of men for the company of God, severed from the pleasures of a 

 worldly life, calmly preparing for eternity, finding at last a grave within the shadow of his 

 mother church. In addition to all these small gardens are several enclosed spaces each originally 

 intended for a flower garden, and to the east were large herb and vegetable gardens, traversed 

 by long pergolas of stone columns, supporting massive chestnut beams and leading to the large 

 peschiera or fishpond. As seen from this point, the great Certosa presents a most impressive 

 picture, rising from the solitary green fields, and one's thoughts wander to the fourteenth century 

 and to the great artists of the Early Renaissance, who raised so wonderful a building in the 

 midst of the vast Lombard plain. 



