Along the south side of the courtyard in front of the facade of Santa Maria delle Grazie, thre is Palazzo Ducale, former summer residence of the Visconti-Sforza dynasty and quarters for guests of high rank, now home of the prestigious Museum of the Certosa. The building was modified in 1625 by a speech in front of the architect Francesco Maria Richini, presents a linear succession of windows between semi conferring elegance and brightness to the whole structure. The first idea for the establishment of a Museum of Charterhouse was launched at the Ministry of Education in 1883 by the Milanese Titus Vespasian Paravicini, noted author of books about Renaissance architecture in Lombardy, who performed the first accurate measurement of the facade painstaking. It was his proposal to start collecting and order, in a single local many marbles, pottery and different pieces to build a museum to illustrate the Certosa. The actual construction of the Museum (on two floors) was made by Luca Beltrami, Director of the Regional Office for the Preservation of Monuments in England since 1891 and since 1892, who had commissioned a first core of the museum, with sculptures by Bambaia, the series of drawings for the facade of the Charterhouse, the "Ecce Homo" by Bramantino, and a first group of casts made by Peter and Edward Pierrotti, in the second half of the nineteenth century, derived from the masterpieces of Renaissance facade, pilasters and capitals of cloisters. The casts of great finesse executive and large, began to be collected in the gallery on the ground floor of Palazzo Ducale, the current collection of plaster casts. The Museum was opened to the public at the first time in 1911, then remained closed for more than half a century. The plaster casts that collects over 200 casts of large and small size is unique not only in Lombardy, but also in Italian. In recent years (2002-2006) have been restored most of these casts, and placed, with a new production by the Superintendency for the Architectural and Landscape of Lombardy, in the gallery on the ground floor of Palazzo Ducale.

Info:
The reservation telephone (0382 539 638) can also be made on the day of the visit (with a minimum notice of 1-2 hours).
The free guided tour is conducted by art historians of the Cooperative Daedalo.
The opening of the museum is subject to the hours of opening and closing of the complex Carthusian.
To visit the church and the monunental complex of the Certosa, apply directly to the Cistercian Fathers.

tel. 0382 539 638 (Coop. Daedalo) - 345 902 0597 (Stefania Greggio)
[email protected] - [email protected]