Sculpture in the Certosa, Pavia

The façade of the Certosa was commissioned by Ludovico il Moro beginning in 1492. Designed and constructed under the supervision of the Pavian architect and sculptor Giovanni Antonio Amadeo, it was built of marble from Carrara, near Pisa. The façade is divided and subdivided into windows and other openings - rectangular, arched or round, and single, double, and quintuple - and enriched with sculptural reliefs.

The terracotta decoration of the two cloisters in the Certosa was carried out during the 1460s by a group of artists of whom the most prominent was Cristoforo Mantegazza. The young Amadeo worked as a modeller in terracotta on the spandrel decoration of the Small Cloister.