At the beginning of the viceregal era, the Certosa di San Martino, a Carthusian monastery of medieval foundation, experienced a resurgence that culminated in the rebuilding of its church starting in the late 1580s. The new church of the Neapolitan Certosa featured an innovative design and an extensive and complex decorative program that distinguished it from all other churches of the order. This dissertation examines the rebuilding of the church of the Certosa di San Martino as a process deeply rooted in the changing religious culture of the time and one that also reveals the tensions inherent to the redefinition of monastic identity in Post-Tridentine Spanish Naples. The development of the Carthusian project paralleled the institutional re-organization of the order, but it also assumed a unique trajectory aimed at highlighting the role of the white monks and contemplative spirituality in the production of sanctity in Naples. By tracing the evolution of the rebuilding initiative within its proper cultural, religious and social context, I clarify the goals of the patrons and the expectations placed on the artists, and I define the scope of the project according to new parameters of spiritual authority. The reconstruction of the rebuilding process relies on primary sources from the Neapolitan State Archives and on recent historical and archaeological research, in addition to comparative studies. This dissertation challenges the view of Post-Tridentine monastic architecture as a mere response to the new liturgical requirements and sides with more recent interpretations by seeing monastic sacred spaces as dynamic places of exchange, and their designs and decorations as expressions of the spiritual authority of the monastic body they house. The rebuilding of the church of the Certosa di San Martino stands as an important example of the process by which spiritual authority was produced and redirected in Spanish Naples. Since 1973, when the first and only monograph on the art of the Certosa di San Martino was published, studies have been sporadic and limited to the analysis of particular works contained in the church. I analyze the new architectural plan and decoration of the church as fundamentally bound to the transformation of Spanish Naples into a holy city. / Art History

Prima parte: L'analisi del rapporto tra spiritualità certosina e devotio moderna consente di individuare il contesto in cui maturò ed ebbe fortuna il De tralatione Bibliae di Petrus Sutor, monaco certosino. La spiritualità certosina ebbe forte influsso sulla Congregazione di Montaigu, espressione estrema della devotio moderna, nella quale lo stesso Sutor fu massima autorità spirituale in qualità di priore della Certosa di Parigi. Alla Congregazione di Montaigu appartennero i principali oppositori di Erasmo nel campo della filologia biblica nell'area di Parigi e Lovanio. In essa ebbe fortuna l'opera di Sutor, anche se il mondo di Montaigu mostra due facce. Il mondo parigino di Montaigu risulta infatti più conservatore di quello lovaniense, che nelle figure di Iacobus Latomus e Frans Titelmans mostra una certa apertura all'umanesimo. Seconda parte e appendice: i contenuti del De tralatione Bibliae mostrano i rapporti di Sutor con altri oppositori erasmiani, Stunica in particolare. Emergono le fonti che stanno alla base delle informazioni storiche fornite da Sutor, tra cui emerge Petrus Comestor, e la risonanza del De tralatione Bibliae negli ambienti culturali inglesi, in particolare in John Fisher. / First Part: In order to supply with due context Sutor's De tralatione Bibliae, it is necessary to rediscover the interplay between Carthusian spirituality and devotio moderna. The carthusian influence was particulary strong in the Congregation of Montaigu, which formed an extreme wing of devotio moderna. Sutor himself played a very important role in the Congregation of Montaigu having been his major authority for three years as Prior of the Parisian Charterhouse. The main critics of Erasmus in the field of biblical philology, who were active in Paris and Louvain theological units belonged to the Montaigu Congregation. There were differences between the Paris and Louvain Montaigu cultural and spiritual habits. Louvain shows a particular trend to moderation and acceptance of some fundamental humanistic issues, that we can trace in Iacobus Latomus and Francis Titelmans. Second Part and Appendix: The contents of Sutor's De tralatione Bibliae display the relationship between Sutor and other critics of Erasmus, in particular Stunica. Through the text we rediscover the different sources Sutor uses in order to supply the reader with historical information, especially Petrus Comestor, and we can identify some echoes of Sutor's works in John Fisher and the English cultural circles.