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CARTHUSIA

The Legend

Legend recounts that in 1380, the father prior of the Carthusian Monastery of St. James, taken by surprise by the news of Queen Joan of Anjou coming to Capri, picked a bouquet of the most beautiful flowers of the island; these remained in the same water for three days and, as he went to throw them away, the prior noticed that it had acquired a mysterious fragrance unknown to him. So he turned to the friar specialised in alchemy, who traced the origin of the scent to the "Garofilium Silvestre Caprese".

That water was the first perfume of Capri.

History

History tells that in 1948 the Prior of the Charterhouse found the old perfume formulae and, with the permission of the Pope, revealed them to a chemist from Piemonte in the North of Italy, and thus created the smallest perfume laboratory in the world, calling it "Carthusia", i.e. “Charterhouse".