Certosa di Vedana, Carthusian monastery in Sospirolo, Italy.
Certosa di Vedana is a Carthusian monastery located on the slopes of Piz di Vedana at around 430 meters elevation. The complex contains a central cloister surrounded by individual monk cells, a church with art pieces, and various communal buildings arranged according to monastic design.
The Chapter of Belluno Cathedral sold the hospice of San Marco di Vedana to the Carthusians in 1457, with the duty to keep lodging pilgrims; the monk Antonio Arlotti became rector. The church was finished in 1471 and consecrated in 1619. A fire damaged the buildings in 1695. The Venetian Senate suppressed the house in 1768, and the monks left on 8 September 1769.
Since 2018 the charterhouse has housed Adoratrici Perpetue del Santissimo Sacramento nuns, who keep continuous prayer before the exposed Host. The monastery is not open to visitors. The name Vedana comes from the old hospice of San Marco di Vedana, whose assistance to pilgrims the Carthusians had to continue under the 1457 sale contract.
The monastery stands in the Masiere locality of Sospirolo, on the road along the Vedana lake toward the San Gottardo pass. The monastic complex is not open to visitors, and the cloistered Adoratrici perpetue sisters who settled there in 2018 live apart from the public.
The monastery church, consecrated in 1619, holds two winged altarpieces painted by Sebastiano Ricci: the Baptism of Jesus and the Madonna with Saints Bruno and Hugo. Ricci worked in the Baroque era, not the Renaissance, so the panels belong to a later Venetian tradition. The complex has been closed to visitors since 2018, when Adoratrici perpetue nuns moved in.
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