The Certosa of Pavia’s peppers

​The Certosa of Pavia was part of a nearly weeklong tour of Pavia and its surroundings I was on last month.  The Certosa is a famous church and monastery compound, about twenty miles south of Milan, “The pinnacle of Renaissance architecture in Lombardy,” according to a fairly erudite and wordy older English guidebook I have.  And Jacob Burckhardt, the famed 19th century Swiss historian of Italian Renaissance architecture, called it “the decorative masterpiece in all of Italy.”  I found the Certosa impressive.  The church, which is most of the complex, especially its façade, was gorgeous on a foggy morning and filled with more than a few striking works of art, from its ceilings to chapels.
 
It’s also an active monastery, somewhat active, as there are just six monks that lead a contemplative life there including the one or two that help out with tourists like us.  The Certosa has a small gift shop, much smaller than the much more visited monastery and church in Assisi.  It’s rather quaint and homey and it even sells the peppers that the monks grow in the courtyards on the grounds.  I saw a couple different peppers, including the Carolina ghost peppers.  I quickly joked to another person on our trip that that the Certosa should be selling another ghost pepper, “holy ghost peppers.”  And they probably could get quite a fair penny for the “Holy Ghost Peppers,” especially if labeled accurately.