Sacra di San Michele

The abbey on Monte Pirchiriano above the Susa valley in Piedmont, on the line of Michael sites running from Ireland to Apulia. The Staircase of the Dead, the Zodiac Door, and the building that gave Eco the setting for The Name of the Rose.

Part of Saint Michael

14 moments in this segment.

1. 1010 - Affresco di Maestro Ottoniano, Crocefissione, inizio secolo xi. Early eleventh-century Ottonian fresco of the Crucifixion in the Sacra di San Michele; among the oldest paintings surviving at the abbey.
2. 2015-01-01 - Arcangelo San Michele. Statue of the Archangel Michael at the Sacra di San Michele, Piedmont, modern photograph.
3. 2016-01-01 - La Sacra di San Michele 006. Aerial view of the Sacra di San Michele astride Monte Pirchiriano, photographed 2016.
4. 2016-01-01 - Archi rampanti. The buttressed substructures of the Sacra di San Michele in Piedmont, photographed 2016; the abbey was begun around 983 on Monte Pirchiriano.
5. 2017-09-26 - The Pilgrim Path of Purification at the Sacra di San Michele. An Italian Catholic broadcast on the penitential ascent pilgrims make to the Val di Susa abbey of the archangel.
6. 2018-06-08 - The Origin of the Sacra di San Michele, Between Saints and Sinners. Volunteer association episode on Saint Giovanni Vincenzo and Hugh of Montboissier, the hermit and aristocrat credited with founding the Piedmont abbey.
7. 2019-02-01 - The Sacra di San Michele Between History and Legend. Italian journalism on the Benedictine abbey dedicated to Michael atop Monte Pirchiriano, 960 metres above the lower Val di Susa.
8. 2020-01-01 - Interno Chiesa Altare. Interior and altar of the abbey church at the Sacra di San Michele, photographed 2020.
9. 2020-04-03 - Reading the Stone and Symbols of the Sacra di San Michele. Illustrated lecture by Fabrizio Antonielli d'Oulx on the architecture, heraldry and iconographic programme of the Val di Susa abbey.
10. 2020-09-19 - The Sacra di San Michele, Symbol of Piedmont. The abbey's own documentary, narrated by its rector, on the mountaintop sanctuary of St Michael in the Val di Susa.
11. 2024-11-23 - Roberto Giacobbo Inside the Abbey of the Archangel Michael. An Italian television presenter tours the Val di Susa abbey that stood for centuries on the route between northern and southern Europe.
12. 2025-02-14 - The Sacra di San Michele: A Thousand-Year Sanctuary. An Italian documentary on the abbey founded more than a thousand years ago above the Val di Susa, an emblem of Piedmont.
13. 2026-01-01 - Capital from the Zodiac Portal Sacra di San Michele n02. Carved capital of the twelfth-century Zodiac Portal at the Sacra di San Michele, modern photograph of Romanesque sculpture by the master Nicholaus.
14. 2026-02-23 - Chronica: Stories from the Sacra di San Michele. The abbey's own podcast series on the origins, myths and legends of the Piedmontese sanctuary of the archangel.