Hermitage of San Michele

The church, first mentioned in the bull of Urban III of 1187, it is located a few kilometers away from the community of Tremosine, at the intersection of the paths from Tremosine and Tignale led to the giudicarie valleys, through the passages of Lorina and Tremalzo and it was part of the district of the pieve of Saint John the Baptist of Tremosine.

The Hermitage of San Michele has a single nave to which was added an octagonal apse, the side walls and the bottom of the arch above the apse are of the Romanesque age.

In the church some elements of the early medieval liturgical furnishings (VIII century) were reused: four in the northern pillar of the median arch of the nave, a fragment of a pillar with a braided decoration at the north entrance of the church and a fragment of a molded base of a small column in the west wall of the hermitage. They provide a term ante quem for the foundation of the church, datable therefore between the seventh and eighth centuries. This antiquity is also suggested by the discovery of crude late antique / early medieval ceramics, casting slag and a burial that came to light in the 1990s in the arc of the portico leaning against the church’s façade: ……… The foundation of the church and the realization of a high quality liturgical decoration could be explained by the presence of an iron mine and a smelting furnace taken at the foot of the church, …… (G.P. Brogiolo)

It is assumed that hermitage of San Michele would be built by the Lombards honoring St. Michael. After a long period of neglect was initially settled by the Alpine Group and subsequently by volunteers of the City and of the Franciscan friars of Lombardy in which the building was assigned as a center of prayer.