Chiesa di San Michele Arcangelo

San Michele Arcangelo is a twelfth-century Romanesque church in Tivoli's medieval quarter. Long deconsecrated, it has served civic purposes and is known as the Sala Ettore Roesler Franz.

Why it matters

The travertine portal has a triangular tympanum and stone dentil course; faint frescoes of the Archangel survive inside. During and after the Second World War the church housed the Italian Red Cross. Its civic history continues in its use for cultural events.

What to notice

The facade has a rectangular window above the portal, smaller flanking windows and a circular opening that is now walled up. Inside, two marble funerary slabs commemorate Giacomo Teobaldi, who died in 1472, and notary Iozio Todini, whose slab dates to 1351. The fourteenth-century bell tower rises beside the church. The interior was restored in the eighteenth century, when it still served as a parish church; it is a single nave that once held two altars and a chapel.

Context and history

Medieval Tivoli had several churches dedicated to Saint Michael. This church carried parish responsibilities into the eighteenth century, when its interior took the form visible today. After deconsecration, the building passed to civic uses. It is now named for Ettore Roesler Franz, the Roman watercolourist who made Tivoli his retreat and painted views of its old streets.