Porta Coeli Charterhouse, Cartuja de Porta Coeli or Cartuja Santa María de Porta Coeli, is a functioning

Carthusian The Carthusians, also known as the Order of Carthusians ( la, Ordo Cartusiensis), are a Latin enclosed religious order of the Catholic Church. The order was founded by Bruno of Cologne in 1084 and includes both monks and nuns. The order has its ...

monastery located on a rural site of the municipality of Serra de Porta Coeli in the province of Valencia, Spain. The name of the charterhouse, ''Porta Coeli'', means ''door of heaven''.

History

The monastery was founded in 1272 under the sponsorship of Andrés Albalat, Bishop of Valencia and confessor of James I of Aragon. From this monastery came the monks to found the charterhouses of Ara Christi and Via Coeli. Porta Coeli also produced two prominent leaders of the order: Father Bonifacio Ferrer (1402-1410), brother of Saint Vincent Ferrer, and Francisco Maresme (1437-1463). The monastery was suppressed in the 19th century, and although it tried to regain the site, the order did not return until 1943, with reconsecration in 1947. It was used as a

Francoist concentration camp In Francoist Spain at least two to three hundred concentration camps operated from 1936 until 1947, some permanent and many others temporary. The network of camps was an instrument of Franco's repression. People such as Republican ex-combatants ...

between 1939 and 1941. It remains the only cloistered men's monastery in the province. Construction at Porta Coeli began at its foundation and continued for centuries, giving the monastery its eclectic architectural contributions. The church is mainly

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

in style, from the 14th century. In the 18th century it underwent a major

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

restructuring. Among the works in the church are paintings depicting scenes from the New Testament (18th century) by the painter

José Camarón Bonanat José Camarón Bonanat, or Bononat (18 May 1731, Segorbe - 14 July 1803, Valencia) was a Spanish draftsman, painter and engraver. Most early sources give his maternal family name as Boronat. Life and works His father, , was a sculptor and ga ...

. It has portraits of the monks Juan de Nea, Francisco de Aranda, Bonifacio Ferrer and Francisco Maresme. The ceiling was frescoed by Luis Antonio Planes. Visits to the cloisters are limited.Cartuja.com website
, entry on Porta Coeli.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Porta Coeli Charterhouse Carthusian monasteries in Spain Monasteries in Spain Bien de Interés Cultural landmarks in the Province of Valencia Gothic architecture in the Valencian Community Churches in the Valencian Community Francoist concentration camps Defunct prisons in Spain