Sacra di San Michele
Encyclopedia
Avigliana
Avigliana is a town and comune in the Province of Turin in the Italian region Piedmont, with c. 11,000 inhabitants, located about 25 km west of Turin. Avigliana lies in the Susa valley, on the highway going from Turin to Frejus ....
and Chiusa di San Michele
Chiusa di San Michele
Chiusa di San Michele is a comune in the Province of Turin in the Italian region Piedmont, located about 30 km west of Turin....
, northern Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. The abbey, which for much of its history came under Benedictine
Benedictine
Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...
rule, is now entrusted to the Rosminians
Rosminians
The Rosminians, officially the Institute of Charity or Societas a charitate nuncupata, are a Roman Catholic religious congregation founded by Antonio Rosmini and first organised in 1828....
. A special regional law acknowledges it as the "Symbolic monument of the Piedmont
Piedmont
Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...
region".
History
According to some historians, in Roman timesAncient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
a military stronghold existed on the current location of the abbey, commanding the main road leading to Gaul
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...
from Italy. Later, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire
Western Roman Empire
The Western Roman Empire was the western half of the Roman Empire after its division by Diocletian in 285; the other half of the Roman Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire, commonly referred to today as the Byzantine Empire....
, the Lombards
Lombards
The Lombards , also referred to as Longobards, were a Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin, who from 568 to 774 ruled a Kingdom in Italy...
built a fortress here against the Frankish
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
invasions.
Little is known of the early years of the abbey. The oldest extant account is that of a monk, William, who lived here in the late 11th century and wrote a Chronicon Coenobii Sancti Michaelis de Clusa. He sets the foundation of the abbey in 966
966
Year 966 was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar.- Europe :* April 14 or April 30 – Mieszko I, the first duke of Poland, is baptized a Christian. This is usually considered the beginning of the Polish state ....
, but, in another passage, the same monk maintains that the construction began under the pontificate of Sylvester II (999-1003).
What is certain is that what is now the crypt
Crypt
In architecture, a crypt is a stone chamber or vault beneath the floor of a burial vault possibly containing sarcophagi, coffins or relics....
was built in the late 10th century, as attested by the Byzantine
Byzantine architecture
Byzantine architecture is the architecture of the Byzantine Empire. The empire gradually emerged as a distinct artistic and cultural entity from what is today referred to as the Roman Empire after AD 330, when the Roman Emperor Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire east from Rome to...
influence in the niches, columns and arches. According to tradition, this building was constructed by the hermit
Hermit
A hermit is a person who lives, to some degree, in seclusion from society.In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Christian who lives the eremitic life out of a religious conviction, namely the Desert Theology of the Old Testament .In the...
Saint Giovanni Vincenzo at the behest of the archangel Michael to whom he was particularly devoted; and the building materials which the hermit had collected were transported miraculously to the top of the mountain. In addition, it is noted that the cult of St. Michael, the archangel who warred with Lucifer, typically bases it churches on pinnacles or hard to reach places, for example, Mont Saint Michel in France.
In the following years a small edifice was added, which could house a small community of monks and some pilgrims.
Later the abbey developed under the Benedictine rule, with the construction of a separate building with guest-rooms for pilgrims following the popular Via Francigena
Via Francigena
The Via Francigena is an ancient road between Rome and Canterbury, passing through England, France, Switzerland and Italy. In mediaeval times it was an important road and pilgrimage route...
and of a church-monastery (1015-1035), probably on the remains of the ancient Roman castrum.
Abbot Ermengardo (1099-1131) had a new large, 26 m-high basement built from the foot of the hill to its peak, on which a new church (the one still existing today) was added, including the surrounding structures.
The monastery, fell into decline and was finally suppressed in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV
Pope Gregory XV
Pope Gregory XV , born Alessandro Ludovisi, was pope from 1621, succeeding Paul V on 9 February 1621...
. It remained abandoned until 1835, when King Charles Albert and the Pope asked Antonio Rosmini to restore and repopulate the monastery. It is currently under the Rosminians, who have here two monks.
Art and architecture
The church, whose construction lasted for many years, is characterized by the unusual position of the façade, which is at a lower level than the floor of the church’s interior.The 41 m-high façade gives access to the Scalone del Morti ("Stairway of the Dead"), flanked by arches, niches and tombs in which, until recent times, skeletons of dead monks where visible (hence the name). At the top of the steps is the marble Porta dello Zodiaco, a masterwork of 12th century sculpture. The church itself is accessed by a Romanesque portal in grey and green stone, built in the early 11th century. The church has a nave and two aisles, and features elements from both the Gothic and Romanesque styles of architecture. On the left wall is a large fresco portraying the Annunciation (1505), while in the Old Choir is a triptych by Defendente Ferrari
Defendente Ferrari
Defendente Ferrari was an Italian painter active in Piedmont.Ferrari was born at Chivasso, near Turin, and worked in the workshop of Giovanni Martino Spanzotti....
.
The complex includes the ruins of the 12th-15th centuries monastery, which had five floors. It ends with the Torre della Bell'Alda ("Tower of the Beautiful Alda") The so-called "Monks' Sepulchre" is probably the remains of a chapel reproducing, in its octagonal plan, the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.