Pleterje Charterhouse, Carthusian monastery in Drča, Slovenia

Pleterje Charterhouse is a Carthusian monastery in the village of Drča near Šentjernej, in a valley at the foot of the Gorjanci Mountains. Most buildings date from the second foundation completed in 1904, but the Gothic church of the Holy Trinity survives from the medieval monastery. The complex is enclosed by a high wall, and entry into the monastery itself is not permitted.

The monastery was founded in 1403 by Count Herman II of Celje, but Ottoman forces destroyed the original structures in 1471. The monks rebuilt it afterward with reinforced walls for better protection against future attacks.

The community owns several dozen paintings from the 17th and 18th centuries, attributed to Flemish, French, Italian and German artists. They are kept on permanent loan at the Božidar Jakac Gallery in Kostanjevica na Krki. Most seem to have arrived with refugee monks from the Bosserville Charterhouse in Lorraine, who were sheltered at Pleterje in 1904.

Entry into the charterhouse itself is not permitted; visitors instead see a projection on Carthusian life in the former Gothic monastery church and can walk the open-air museum of peasant buildings from the Šentjernej plain on the monastery grounds. The complex lies in a valley below the Gorjanci Mountains near Šentjernej.

The Gothic Church of the Holy Trinity is the only building that survived from the medieval monastery; everything else dates from the rebuilding begun in 1899. The monks brought much of the interior furnishings and a collection of several dozen 17th- and 18th-century Flemish, French, Italian and German paintings, mostly with refugee monks from Bosserville in Lorraine in 1904; the paintings are on permanent loan to a gallery in Kostanjevica na Krki.