LANFRANCO, Giovanni
(b. 1582, Parma, d. 1647, Roma)

View of the nave and choir

1637-39
Fresco
Certosa di San Martino, Naples

The Carthusian charterhouse (Certosa di San Martino) in Naples was established in 1325 and it became one of the wealthiest monasteries in Naples. It enjoyed its greatest flowering in the late sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries under the rule of the Spanish viceroys. The architectural redesign and modernization begun shortly after 1581. The splendid interior decoration set the style of the Neapolitan Baroque.

The first step in the redesign of the Gothic church of the charterhouse in the style of the Counter-Reformation was the painting of the choir, which was accomplished in two phases (1589 and 1595) by Giuseppe Cesari. Giovanni Lanfranco gave the choir a more modern look nearly fifty years later.

The picture shows a view of the nave and the choir. The Crucifixion in the apse and the Ascension of Christ on the nave vault with Old Testament groupings in the spandrels are by Lanfranco.