Church of San Michele Arcangelo – Virtual Tour 360°

At a glance

Type

Parish church

Where

San Michele, Sacile, Province of Pordenone, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy

Coordinates

45.9561137° N, 12.4894166° E

Parish committee

1973

Built

1978-1980

Enlarged

From February 1987, by Professor Trebbi

Window

By Luigi Veronesi, given by Commendatore Bortolo Salvador

Overview

The church of San Michele Arcangelo stands in the hamlet of the same name in the comune of Sacile, in the Province of Pordenone, in Friuli-Venezia Giulia.

The Archangel Michael was held by the Lombards to be a protector of their people. Devotion to the saint goes back to the sixth century and is bound up with the political activity of Pope Gregory the Great.

History

The place names of Ronche and San Michele probably have to do with the Lombard past of the district, and it is to that period that those who suppose an earlier place of worship here refer; the Lombards built a number of sacred buildings. Some scholars derive Roncho, Ronchis, Ronch and Ronche from a Lombard word for desolate woodland, which probably served as protection and barrier for the settled areas.

There is evidence that a small church stood at the centre of the San Michele settlement from the seventeenth century and was later destroyed. At the Duomo of San Nicolò an altar dedicated to St Michael the Archangel existed from the eighteenth century; it was the custom of those centuries to move altars to neighbouring churches when a church was rebuilt or pulled down.

The present parish and church belong to the 1970s and 1980s. At the beginning of the Seventies Monsignor Aldo Santin called together the inhabitants of the hamlets of San Michele and Ronche and of the locality of Cornadella to form a new parish, which took the name of San Michele Arcangelo e del Santissimo Redentore. At the start of 1973 a committee took on the project, the purchase of the land and the permissions; by mid-year a prefabricated church, brought from Vidor, was put up for Sunday mass. Permission to build came in 1978 and work began in September; volunteers gave about a thousand hours of labour. The prefabricated church was taken away for good at the end of Holy Week 1980, and in the autumn of 1980 the new church was finished, in time for the community’s first Christmas in it. As the community grew, in February 1987 Professor Trebbi was charged with enlarging the building; the enlarged church is the one standing today.

What you see

The building is modern, with walkways outside that reach towards the square of the hamlet: the porticoes are meant to draw people towards the services.

Inside there is a single nave, one large hall in which the benches are set at differing heights, rising from the level of the altar, placed low, to that of the baptistery, placed higher — an arrangement that also gives weight to the tabernacle beside the altar. The presbytery can be read as three spaces: the place of the word, the place of the sacrifice and the place of sacramental presence.

Behind the presbytery stands a full-height cathedral-glass window in which the artist, Luigi Veronesi, worked out a design of the Archangel Michael. It was given by Commendatore Bortolo Salvador in memory of his wife Angela.

Practical information

• Address: Via Peruch 14, 33077 Sacile (PN), Friuli-Venezia Giulia.
• It is a working parish church.

Sources

• Cultural Heritage Online historical archive — original Italian entry (beniculturalionline.it), transposed and corrected 2026.