ABSTRACT
The church and monastery rose with incredible speed, and in unrivalled splendour; and in three years it was sufficiently advanced to receive the prior and twenty-four monks of the order of the Chartreuse. From the dazzling splendour of the temple, and all its concomitant buildings, it is gracious to turn to the cloisters of the Certosa, where all is simple, solemn, and stamped with monastic gravity and sequestration. There was something melancholy in the pains he had bestowed in his little garden, of about 30 or 40 feet in circumference: he had painted or otherwise ornamented every stone in the high wall; he had decorated his little fountain till it resembled a child's toy. It was on a mild and beautiful morning in autumn that authors visited the Certosa; and when they passed the ponderous and magnificent portals that lead to its vast court, the scene was most impressive.
