SHARRYLAND
Ancient Basilica of St. Michael
When there is an element on a facade in an odd position, an off-center door, for example, rest assured that there is always an interesting story to tell.
Where is
What it is and where it is
The ancient church of St. Michael is located inside the Oleggio cemetery; once through the gate we immediately realize that we are in a special and very important place from a historical-artistic point of view. The salient facade tells us immediately that we are not about to enter an oratory or a marginal little church, but a place of worship that must have been a landmark for its community.
Why it is special
The Ticino, like all rivers, has for centuries been a place of contact between different populations. Similarly, on the walls of San Michele flows the 'interweaving of different cultures. Despite its Romanesque facade, in fact, inside there are frescoes that tell us of an encounter between local and oriental craftsmen.
Not to be missed
The frescoes inside speak of a Byzantine background. On the counterfaçade we can see a Last Judgment, one of the most important in northern Italy. In the center stood the figure of Christ the Judge, now partly lost; on either side of it are numerous figures in several registers. In the apse, in the center, stands a Christ Pantocrator in mandorla; to the left appears St. Michael leading a host of angels. Then there are scenes from the "Liber de apparitione Sancti Michaelis in Monte Gargano."
A bit of history
The church is first mentioned in 973, in connection with a village called "Olegium qui dicitur langobardorum." The construction of the building as we see it today probably dates back to 1040-1050, on the remains of an earlier single-room building datable to the 7th century detected by some archaeological excavations. This very fact may explain why, even today, the door is off-center. As for the Byzantine influences in the interior frescoes, they seem to be due to the fascination that culture exerted on Odo, bishop of Novara, during one of his trips to Constantinople.
Curiosities
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, scholars expressed a negative opinion of the seventeenth-century additions; in fact, during the first restoration campaign, the idea of <bringing the building back to its medieval origin</strong> prevailed, and that is why the furnishings from later periods were removed. At the Museum of Religious Art "Fr. A. Mozzetti" in Oleggio is preserved an antependium with the symbols of St. Michael the Archangel, which once decorated the altar of St. Michael, datable to the second quarter of the 18th century in polychrome scagliola.
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