Basilica di San Michele Maggiore

San Michele Maggiore is a major Romanesque basilica in Pavia. Its sandstone facade, sculpted imagery and floor mosaics preserve the religious and royal associations of a site used for medieval coronations.

Why it matters

San Michele belonged to the ceremonial life of the Kingdom of Italy. Frederick Barbarossa was crowned here in 1155. The coronation history concerns a succession of buildings on the site, not an unchanged church surviving from the earliest medieval kings.

What to notice

The facade is divided into three sections by substantial half-pilasters, with a gallery following the roof slopes. Weathered reliefs combine biblical episodes, symbolic animals and fantastic figures. Inside, the floor mosaic of the months associates the cycle of the year with seasonal work. The crypt and the tenth-century silver Crucifix of Teodote add further layers to the basilica's artistic history.

Context and history

A church existed here in the Lombard period, close to the royal palace. Fire damaged the earlier building in 1004. The surviving basilica is chiefly the result of twelfth-century rebuilding, with an older bell tower incorporated into the complex. Its Romanesque fabric therefore belongs to a later phase of an already significant royal site.