Church of San Michele Arcangelo

The current building of the Church of S. Michele Arcangelo in Montopoli di Sabina dates back to the seventeenth century, but would rise on a previous church of the eleventh century, which is believed to have been built by the military garrisons that guarded the fortresses of Monte Tancia.

The church has undergone various restorations over time – including an important one at the beginning of the nineteenth century – not always in keeping with the characteristics of the building and during a reconstruction work, bases from the Roman era were found, together with a fragment of a statue of a divinity. female.

The bell tower dates back to the 14th century and has elegant Gothic mullioned windows. The two ancient bells are called by the Montopolesi with the nicknames of Marta and Maria.
Externally the nineteenth-century facade is completely anonymous and unadorned, and opens onto a small square with some Roman marble including a plaque with the inscription, sometimes illegible, in which Q. Cossutius invokes the gods for the young girl Pia Emilia , lived 15 years, and died on the second day of the sixth month. The epigraph is completed by a small female head in marble, much deteriorated and probably added later.

Internally it can be seen that the original Latin cross plan, with two side chapels in the transept, was transformed during the interventions into a simple hall plan ending in an apse, with three chapels on each side. Proceeding on the left side entering we find:

First chapel: Baptismal font in white marble surrounded by a wrought iron gate forged by hand in 1778. The spearheads it bristles with are authentic and were delivered at the request of Archpriest Monsignor Fiori as a symbol against all wars.
Second chapel: Canvas from the early nineteenth century depicting St. Charles Borromeo. Under the altar, a glass case protects a polychrome plaster reproduction of Jesus in the tomb.
Third chapel: Large canvas of 1802, depicting the marriage of Mary. In front of this chapel the orphaned girls were drawn who would have been provided with a dowry thanks to a bequest of 1637 from the Luzi family.

A passage leads to the fifteenth-century chapel of the old transept, with fragments of a frescoed crucifixion and a sixteenth-century wooden statue of St. Michael the Archangel, coming from the wooden altar that was once the main altar.

In the apse area there are two fifteenth-century statues in polychrome wood: on the left St. Peter with the keys and on the right St. Paul with the sword; on the vault a fresco by Plonis from 1912 depicts the Holy Spirit. The cross on the side of the altar is supported by a base dated 1680, and the large canvas with St. Michael the Archangel subduing the Evil One, is from 1802 and reproduces that of Reni.

On the right side, a side door leads to the Chapel of the Crucifix – in Gothic style – and almost opposite, on the floor, a glass plate highlights the underlying ancient floor of the church.

The third chapel is called the Confraternity Chapel, as the Confraternity of the Rosary and that of the Crucifix referred to it.
Second chapel: painting of 1802 depicting St. Anthony of Padua, by Saverio Pozzi; the first chapel is bare.
The ceiling is completely frescoed with ornamental and sacred motifs.