Situated in the municipality of Rovato, San Michele is nestled amongst the woods of Montorfano, a place that must undoubtedly have been an object of devotion from very early on, given its prominent position and its wooded setting, seen as a place of mystery and the sacred. Its first foundation may date back to the Early Middle Ages: indeed, whilst there are no surviving documents that might help to reconstruct its origins more precisely, the interior still bears traces of devotion to Saints Filastrio and Gaudenzio, the first bishops of Brescia, who were instrumental in the institutionalisation of the Church\u2019s orthodoxy through the numerous councils held between the 4th and 5th centuries. We must not, however, forget that, in the late Middle Ages, at a time when new heretical movements were spreading far and wide, the cult of Filastrio experienced a resurgence, as the patron of orthodoxy and author of the Diversarum Hereseon Liber, as demonstrated by the foundation of a church dedicated to him in Valtrompia.<\/p>\n
Another interesting detail is the dedication to the Archangel Michael, which would suggest both a Lombard foundation and the possible presence of a castrum, perhaps an outpost of an older fortified structure situated on the hill, which, according to tradition, was restored and reused.<\/p>\n
On the exterior, the building still displays its ancient, unplastered elevations, clearly revealing the use of blocks of the characteristic Monte Orfano stone, roughly hewn and arranged in irregular courses. The apse, too, features rusticated walls with a plain surface, devoid of pilasters or other decorations, with the exception of a smooth, projecting cornice at the top. The archaic architectural style, which still draws on Romanesque elements, would suggest a 14th-century date, as confirmed by the oldest frescoes in the interior wall decoration. The interior conforms to the characteristics of a Lombard parish church, with a single rectangular nave closed off by a semi-circular, east-facing apse. The main entrance, the result of a later alteration, is now situated on the side wall.<\/p>\n
The small church still houses a fine collection of frescoes, dating from the 14th century to the early decades of the 16th century, which are concentrated on the right-hand wall and in the apse. Among the oldest frescoes, dating from the 14th century and influenced by the Giotto-style tradition of Padua, a rare depiction of Saint Bernard stands out; he is identified as Bernard of Clairvaux, clad in the white habit of the Cistercians, shown here brandishing a scourge and punishing an unidentified figure on the right, perhaps a heretic. His presence in this guise is thought to be linked to that of Saints Gaudentius and Filastrius, depicted in a fine panel from the first quarter of the 15th century (the lower frame still bears the partially damaged date \u2018mccc\u2019, i.e. 1400).<\/p>\n
The painting adorning the apse basin is of remarkable quality; the lower register is entirely occupied by devotional images of the Virgin and a Crucifixion, which belong to an older layer and still bear the hallmarks of fourteenth-century style.<\/p>\n
The entire semi-dome of the apse, on the other hand, is occupied by a large fresco of great iconographic and art-historical interest: the painting, conceived as a single composition, depicts at its centre a distinctive version of the Nativity, with the Virgin Mary in the act of adoring the Child, surrounded by angels and flanked by Saint Joseph, who is crouching in deep thought. In addition to the liveliness of the landscape, populated by small figures of shepherds in the background, it is worth noting that the iconography of the Madonna of Humility, i.e. the Virgin seated directly on the ground rather than on a throne, became widespread in the Brescia area from the early 15th century, perhaps drawing on a model introduced by Gentile da Fabriano, and is also present in the apse of the Church of San Francesco in Brescia.<\/p>\n
On the left is the Archangel Michael, depicted full-length and clad entirely in armour, captured in the act of defeating the devil, an iconography which, once again, is linked to the realm of orthodoxy and the struggle against heretical movements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":763,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","categorie_arte":[418],"comuni":[258],"class_list":["post-5130","arte_e_cultura","type-arte_e_cultura","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","categorie_arte-parish-churches-and-sanctuaries","comuni-rovato"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n