Certosa di San Martino

The high point (quite literally) of Neapolitan baroque, this stunning charterhouse, Certosa Di San Martino, is home to the Museo Nazionale di San Martino. Founded as a Carthusian monastery in the 14th century, the Certosa owes most of its present look to facelifts in the 16th and 17th centuries, the latter by baroque maestro Cosimo Fanzago. The church and the rooms that flank it contain a feast of frescoes and paintings by Naples’ greatest 17th-century artists – Francesco Solimena, Massimo Stanzione, Giuseppe de Ribera and Battista Caracciolo.

Adjacent to the church, the elegant Chiostro dei Procuratori is the smaller of the monastery’s two cloisters. A grand corridor on the left leads to the larger Chiostro Grande, considered one of Italy’s finest. Originally designed by Giovanni Antonio Dosio in the late 16th century and added to by Fanzago, it’s a sublime composition of white Tuscan-Doric porticoes, manicured gardens and marble statues. The skulls mounted on the balustrade were a light-hearted reminder to the monks of their own mortality.

Just off the Chiostro dei Procuratori, the Sezione Navale focuses on the history of the Bourbon navy from 1734 to 1860, and features a small collection of beautiful royal barges.

To the north of the Chiostro Grande, the Sezione Presepiale houses a whimsical collection of rare Neapolitan presepi (nativity scenes) carved in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The Quarto del Priore (Prior’s Quarter) in the southern wing houses the bulk of the picture collection, as well as one of the museum’s most famous pieces, Pietro Bernini’s tender La Vergine col Bambino e San Giovannino (Madonna and Child with the Infant John the Baptist).