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. 
Upon the south side of the small cloister is a handsome Iavabo, 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. 
