MONTELLO
The Charterhouse.
What today looks like a clearing on the Montello Hill, along the Road of Friars, it used to be the cradle of the Charterhouse of Montello.
We have to close our eyes to be capable of imagining the shape of a Carthusian monastery born here in 1300.
It is the Twenties of 1300 and Giovanni di Fassa, after experiencing a vision, decides to retire on the Montello Hill, in a grotto. He lives as a hermit and devotes to the cult of Saint Girolamo, that gives the name to the cave. Next to the grotto we can see a source of water, that flows almost all year, rare thing on the karst landcape of the Hill.
Twenty years later from this community, the Charterhouse of Montello comes to life. It is a monastery, wanted by the Collalto family and Venice, whose significant donations make the end of construction possible within the end of the century. It is then consecreted in 1396.
The Monastery survives many centuries, until the arrival of Napoleon, who plunders its artworks and treasures in 1806. Monks are moved to the Charterhouse of Venice.
A few years later the building is sold at auction and then destroyed in order to create a forest. The inhabitants were asked to remove any piece of wall and to use it to make new constructions.
All that is left today of the many centuries of permanence of the Charterhouse of Montello are a clearing covered in grass and the tale that leaves the shape of the building to your imagination.