Photo 1 - The Sacra di San Michele (from Street view, I was driving)
It looms over the motorway that goes into the Val di Susa, towards the Monginevro or Moncenisio passes and therefore towards France. Since ancient times it has been a sentinel on the passage of people and troops to and from France.
Photo 2 - Tombstone of the Roman tomb
Already in Roman times there was a castrum and on the walls of the sacra, there is a tombstone set from a Roman tomb of the time. Also used by the Lombards to control the raids of the Franks, at the end of the 10th century, although with an uncertain date, the construction of the monastery began and in 999 the first monk abbot settled.
Photo 3 - The Sacra di San Michele on top of the hill
Passing on the highway, we notice this “castle”, high up on the mountain. One of the potentials of the modern era is that you can immediately inform yourself and we decide to stop on the way back to visit it. We thus discover that it is the third Sanctuary dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel connected by a straight line that starts from Mont saint Michel, passes through the Sacra, then through the Santuario di San Michele a Sant’Angelo nel Gargano, , visited a month earlier, to finish to the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem. A line that was also the direction to take for the Via Francigena passing through the Alps and which precisely had these three sanctuaries as very important stops and the Sacra, in fact, was the first stop in Italy. Furthermore, last but not least, La Sacra di San Michele is the symbol of Piedmont. It was also the source of inspiration for Umberto Eco for his book “The Name of the Rose”, although it was not set right there, but Eco was a frequent visitor to the Sacra. An attempt was also made to shoot the film, but it would have been too complicated and expensive.
Photo 4 - The access stairway to the Sacra di San Michele
Mount Pirchiriano, on whose summit stands the Sacra, is 960 meters high, but the top of the Abbey reaches 1000. The visit is only guided by voluntary guides. Now there are few priests left, perhaps only one and from the point of view of pilgrimage it no longer has the same past function.
Photo 5 - Our guide awaits us at the entrance to the Sacra di San Michele
Photo 6 - The staircase of the dead
You enter and go up to the main entrance of the Church through the Staircase of the Dead, so steep that you might think it could be called that for those who died facing its ramps but, the truth is that it was once a cemetery. The steps lean directly on the rock of the mountain and the staircase comes out on the square with the main entrance of the Church.
Photo 7 - The main entrance of the Church
Photo 8 - The Zodiac door
The Zodiac Door is one of the most beautiful works of the Sacra and through it we enter the Church.
Photo 9 - The interior of the church
Photo 10 - The tombs of the Savoy family, former Italian royal family
The church, with three naves, is undoubtedly striking for the various tombs placed in the middle of the church. And so we discover from the guide that we were inside the memorial of the House of Savoy. In fact, at the beginning of 1800, 24 bodies of royals of the House of Savoy were moved from the Turin cathedral, none of them so famous in reality.
Photo 11 - View of the Val di Susa, with the tower of the beautiful Alda
Behind the blonde, the ruins of the new monastery with in particular the tower of the bell’Alda, the subject of a suggestive legend: a girl (probably who lived in the 13th - 14th century), the bell’Alda in fact, wanting to escape from the capture of some soldiers by fortune, he found himself on the top of the tower. After praying, desperate, she preferred to jump into the precipice below rather than get caught; they came to her rescue the angels and she, miraculously, she landed unscathed. Legend has it that she, to demonstrate to her fellow villagers what had happened, she again attempted to fly from the tower, but that due to the vanity of her gesture she was instead killed.