In the ex-refectory of the Certosa there is a small museum dedicated to Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach, a German painter who went to Capri in 1900 and lived there till his death in 1913.  |He is buried in the cemetery on Capri along with other famous foreign residents.  Diefenbach grew up in Munich and reached success in the 1890’s as one of Franz Joseph’s favorite painters.  Tired of the upper middle class establishment under the Austro-Hungarian rule, he moved south.  After a brief stay in Trieste then a trip to Cairo at age 50 Diefenbach decided to settle in Capri.  The art historian Raffaello Causa, founder of the      

Diefenbach Museum, describes Capri at that time as “an island of esoteric abandon and esthetic license.”  

While the Italian art world ignored the German artist’s stay on Capri, in Germany his fame continued with collectors competing to aquire his works.  One of his most famous was a gigantic 75 meter frieze entitled “Aspera ad aspera.”  He was also known for his “schattenzeichnungen” or monochromatic silhouettes.  Diefenbach painted scenes of deliverance with dark forests and Nordic myths and religion narrated in picturesque style similar to that of Boeklin and Klinger, von Mares and Runge who epitomized the romantic period in German art.  

On his death in 1913, Diefenbach left an atelier on Capri with nearly 300 works of art.  Of these about 30 remain on the island today thanks to efforts by his heirs who were able to overcome countless bureaucratic obstacles and transfer 31 canvases, five sculptures and one portrait to the State.  These were installed at the Certosa of San Giacomo where the National Museum of Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach was established on June 11, 1974.
Upon entrance to the museum the visitor is struck by the gigantic proportions of the works of this eccentric artist where “in his very personal vision of the surroundings of Capri one finds romanticism and the beginnings of expressionism.  From the island Diefenbach formed a disturbing vision of primal matter in the act of creation, a land of wild forces of unreal sunsets and inconceivably endless nights.”