Saint Micheletto

Via S. Micheletto, 2 55100 Lucca LU Italia

A church dedicated to the archangel Michael, called San Michele in Cipriano, founded in 720 by the noble Pertuale in the so-called "borghicciolo", an urban agglomeration that develops on the route of the ancient decuman outside the door of San Gervasio are still visible today a short distance). Of this ancient church of Lombard foundation only four small pillars remain, today walled up in the north side of the church, bearing a spiral decoration of great compositional rigor. The north side is also included part that remained intact of the reconstruction that affects the building at the end of the 12^th century: the masonry technique used was then that of the sandstone ashlars perfectly squared and installed with great regularity, interspersed with rows of white limestone . The portal that opens in the side also belongs to this phase, with a precious white limestone architrave decorated with a phytomorphic branch with branches that starts from two lateral characters: the work can be assigned to the area of ​​Biduino, a sculptor active in the the area of ​​Lucca and Pisa in the second half of the 12^th century, also the author of an architrave with Entry into Jerusalem, today in the Lucca private collection, perhaps from the facade of this same church. The adjoining convent began to develop in the 15^th century, assuming its current connotation especially during the eighteenth century. With the Napoleonic principality of the Baciocchi in the early 19^th century, complex complexes included in Elisa's larger project to rethink this city area as the fulcrum of the Baciocchesca court, with the renovation of a villa with a garden for her (the nearby Villa Bottini) , the construction of palaces for high officials (the Froussard and Matteucci palaces), the authorities of Porta Elisa and the rectification of the homonymous street: the activity of this radical urban reorganization, the church and the convent of San Micheletto were deceived and destined stables and service rooms for nearby buildings.