This Church Is Not So Old As The
One At Giornico, But It Is A Good Though Plain Example Of Early
Lombard Architecture.
CHAPTER VII - S. Michele and the Monte Pirchiriano
Some time after the traveller from Paris to Turin has passed
through the Mont Cenis tunnel, and shortly before he arrives at
Bussoleno station, the line turns eastward, and a view is obtained
of the valley of the Dora, with the hills beyond Turin, and the
Superga, in the distance. On the right-hand side of the valley and
about half-way between Susa and Turin the eye is struck by an
abruptly-descending mountain with a large building like a castle
upon the top of it, and the nearer it is approached the more
imposing does it prove to be. Presently the mountain is seen more
edgeways, and the shape changes. In half-an-hour or so from this
point, S. Ambrogio is reached, once a thriving town, where
carriages used to break the journey between Turin and Susa, but
left stranded since the opening of the railway. Here we are at the
very foot of the Monte Pirchiriano, for so the mountain is called,
and can see the front of the building - which is none other than the
famous sanctuary of S. Michele, commonly called "della Chiusa,"
from the wall built here by Desiderius, king of the Lombards, to
protect his kingdom from Charlemagne.
The history of the sanctuary is briefly as follows:-
At the close of the tenth century, when Otho III was Emperor of
Germany, a certain Hugh de Montboissier, a noble of Auvergne,
commonly called "Hugh the Unsewn" (lo sdruscito), was commanded by
the Pope to found a monastery in expiation of some grave offence.
He chose for his site the summit of the Monte Pirchiriano in the
valley of Susa, being attracted partly by the fame of a church
already built there by a recluse of Ravenna, Giovanni Vincenzo by
name, and partly by the striking nature of the situation.
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