{"id":309645,"date":"2024-08-09T21:40:31","date_gmt":"2024-08-09T19:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/what-to-see\/citerna-church-of-san-michele-arcangelo-2\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T12:20:56","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T11:20:56","slug":"citerna-church-of-san-michele-arcangelo","status":"publish","type":"what-to-see","link":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/what-to-see\/citerna-church-of-san-michele-arcangelo\/","title":{"rendered":"Church of San Michele Arcangelo"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Church of San Michele Arcangelo in Citerna<\/strong><\/a> stands near the site where the ancient parish church of St Michael once stood; this church is documented as far back as the 12th century and featured a baptismal font. For a long time, this parish church was the main religious centre of the village, but it collapsed completely following the violent earthquake that struck Citerna and the Upper Tiber Valley in 1917. In fact, religious services had already been transferred to the nearby Church of the Most Holy Sacrament as early as 1810.<\/p>\n

The current building features simple, linear architecture, with a gabled fa\u00e7ade embellished by a central rose window. The layout is in the shape of a Latin cross, with a single nave flanked by six side chapels, whilst the square-shaped choir is covered by a barrel vault. Despite the building\u2019s simplicity, the interior houses numerous works of art created between the 16th and 20th centuries.<\/p>\n

Of particular note in the first chapel on the left are an oil on panel depicting Saint Nicholas of Tolentino and the souls in Purgatory, and, above it, a scene of Solomon among his concubines; both date from the 17th to the 18th century. The second chapel houses a glazed ceramic piece depicting the Madonna and Child, attributed to Giovanni della Robbia (16th\u201317th century), originally from the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception, which was attached to the old parish church and destroyed in the 1917 earthquake. The third chapel, meanwhile, displays a 20th-century canvas depicting Saint Michael the Archangel.<\/p>\n

On the right-hand side of the nave are other notable works: in the first chapel, a painting depicting Saint Lucy, Saint Anthony of Padua and Saint Felix of Cantalice, accompanied at the top by a scene of Moses being saved from the waters; in the second, a votive papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 statue with a canvas depicting the Almighty; and in the third, a painting dedicated to the Virgin Mary.<\/p>\n

The most important work housed in the church is undoubtedly the large Crucifixion (1570) by Niccol\u00f2 Circignani, known as Il Pomarancio, now situated in the chapel of the right transept following extensive restoration. The large-scale painting depicts, in the upper section, Christ crucified between the two thieves, whilst in the lower section the Sorrowful Virgin is surrounded by a crowd of around forty figures. The work bears the artist\u2019s signature and features a curious detail: among the figures is a character dressed in red, with dark skin and wearing spectacles, interpreted by some scholars as a possible symbolic or even demonic representation linked to the artist himself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Discover the Church of San Michele Arcangelo in Citerna, a Latin cross-plan church with side chapels and works of art including Pomarancio\u2019s *Crucifixion*.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":236665,"template":"","village-conntection":[50604],"what-to-see-region-and-provinces":[76222,76221],"what-to-see-category":[30159],"class_list":["post-309645","what-to-see","type-what-to-see","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","village-conntection-citerna-it","what-to-see-region-and-provinces-perugia-en","what-to-see-region-and-provinces-umbria-en","what-to-see-category-place-of-cult"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/what-to-see\/309645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/what-to-see"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/what-to-see"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/what-to-see\/309645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"village-conntection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/village-conntection?post=309645"},{"taxonomy":"what-to-see-region-and-provinces","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/what-to-see-region-and-provinces?post=309645"},{"taxonomy":"what-to-see-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/what-to-see-category?post=309645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}