History

The definitive closure of the fireworks factory in 1958 and the military residences ten years later caused a painful state of decay.
In 1997 the Magistrato alle Acque-Consorzio Venezia Nuova and the Municipality of Venice began works of restoration, morphological and environmental recovery, reuse and economic revitalisation of the island. The work was financed by the EU, the Special Law for Venice and the ordinary budget of the Venice City Council.
From 1985 to the present day, the Certosa and Sant’Andrea Committee – led by Venetian environmentalists Cesare Scarpa and Flavio Cogo – has been mobilising to protect the island from deterioration and restore it as an Urban Park, organising “Certosa Day” for 15 years and involving thousands of citizens. Since December 2000, the Committee has been running the environmental surveillance service on Certosa Island in collaboration with the prison social cooperative “Il Cerchio – Onlus”. Since 2003, the Territorial Environmental Education Laboratory has been set up with funding from the Province of Venice.

Nel dicembre del 1807, in seguito all’occupazione dei territori da parte dei francesi, i monaci della Certosa di Venezia furono trasferiti presso il convento del Bosco del Montello. Alcuni anni prima si era ventilata l’idea di costruire il cimitero principale presso l’isola ma l’ipotesi fu abbandonata per quella di San Michele presso Murano. Nel 1812, essendo stata occupata dai militari ,vide la costruzione di nuovi depositi di polvere a sostituire quelli vetusti Seicenteschi.
All’inizio del XIX secolo, in seguito agli editti di Napoleone, l’isola cessò forzatamente l’uso conventuale e fu spogliata delle sue opere d’arte, venendo convertita all’uso militare.

In December 1807, after the occupation of the territories by the French, the monks of the Certosa di Venezia were transferred to the Bosco del Montello convent. A few years earlier the idea of building the main cemetery on the island had been floated, but the idea was abandoned in favour of San Michele near Murano. In 1812, occupied by the military, new powder stores were built to replace the old XVII century ones.
At the beginning of the 19th century, following Napoleon’s edicts, the island was forced to cease its conventual use and was stripped of its works of art, being converted to military use.

After only two centuries, following the abandonment of this first community, the island was given to the Carthusian community. On 15 June 1424 Pope Martino V asked the Abbot of San Giorgio Maggiore to transfer the few Augustinian canons remaining on the island to other monasteries of the lagoon.
It was only after the reclamation and consolidation of the island that work began on the construction of the shores. In particular, in 1581 was built the entire shore closing off the meadow. The main activity of the island, was represented by the presence of a few farmers who worked the fields on the island. The most important economy was that of the vegetable garden, vineyards and, in part, grazing.
In 1576 the island was affected by the plague and suffered various damages to the structures and the vineyards present. In 1632, work began on the construction of the Powder House. The structures on the island needed continuous maintenance and, at the end of the XVIII century, work was carried out on the cells, the church and the bell tower.

The north-eastern inlet of Venice became the preferred route into the lagoon from the earliest development of the city. It was no coincidence that the island of Certosa became the site of an Augustinian community as early as December 1199, when the Bishop of Castello granted Domenico Franco, a priest of the church of Santa Sofia in Venice, ‘two tumbe di terra versus porticellos in littore minori‘, owned by the same bishopric.