Description

The Church of San Michele Arcangelo stands blocking off an open space on the main street, in the hamlet of Cortigno.

The long side is joined to the rock that emerges inside the building; at the front is a portico (1760) dominated by a clock and the bell tower, with two lions of Norcia (16th cent.) and two statuettes of praying persons. Two doors open below the open gallery, the first with a pointed arch (14th cent.) with fragments of frescoes from the 15th and 16th centuries; the second, Romanesque, with a lunette frescoed with the Madonna and Child with Saints John the Baptist and Catherine of Alexandria and an arched lintel with five tondi (two angels, St. Paul, Christ blessing, St. Peter) from the 1300s. A chapel built in 1504 and later transformed into a sacristy forms a single body with the church.

Inside, it has a single nave with vaults and three bays. Next to the door is the baptismal font with a basin embellished with two heads in relief (1312). The altars are set on the long wall across from the entrance; all made from wood, (and the canvases) are from the 17th century; on the first, a Deposition and Saints; on the second, a Madonna and Child and Saints Charles Borromeo and Francis and two virgins; on the third, is a modern statue of the Assumption and at the sides modest wooden statues of St. Anthony Abbot and St. Benedict.

The high altar occupies the entire back wall and has a canvas of the Crucifixion; at the sides are two wooden statues of St. Michael Archangel (as a psychopomp and conqueror of evil), the Angel and Tobias.