Sacra di San Michele, sometimes called the Abbey of San Michele - religious complex, built on Monte Pirkiriano at the entrance to the Val di Susa. The complex is located in the municipality Sant Ambrogio di Torino and is owned by the Diocese of Susa. For many years the Sacra di San Michele, majestically overlooking the villages of Avigliana and Chiusa di San Michele, is considered a symbol of the Italian Piedmont region.

According to some historical documents, in the era of Ancient Rome on the site of the present abbey has a military bastion, controlled the main roads that connect Italy with France. Later, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Lombards built a fortress designed to protect the land from the invasion of the Franks.

On the first years of existence of the Sacra di San Michele, very little is known. The most ancient testimony belongs to a certain monk William, who lived in the abbey at the end of the 11th century and wrote a treatise on history. William says that the abbey was laid in the year 966, but in the same treatise, he mentions another date - the reign of the pontiff Sylvester II (999-1003-th years). It is known that the part of San Michele, which today serves as a crypt was built in the late 10th century - is confirmed niches, columns and arches made in the Byzantine style. According to legend, this building was erected as a hermit Giovanni Vincenzo, who was Archangel Michael. The same legend says that the materials for the construction of the crypt, collected hermit overnight miraculously appeared on a mountaintop.

In subsequent years, the crypt was attached to another small building, which could accommodate monks and pilgrims. Later, the abbey was in the ownership of the Benedictine Order and the beginning of active development - were built free-standing building for the reception of pilgrims and itinerant church, possibly on the site of the ancient Roman Castrum (the very bastion of the military). In the 12th century, on the initiative of the abbot Ermengarde was laid a huge, 26 meters in height, the foundation of the base of the hill to its summit, which housed the new church, which exists to this day, and other buildings.

In the early 17th century Sacra di San Michele began to decline, and in 1622, the year was abolished by order of Pope Gregory XV. Until 1835, the abbey was abandoned until King Charles Albert had not turned to the priest and philosopher Antonio Rozmini with a request to restore it and turn back to the monastery. And today the Sacra di San Michele belongs to the Order rozminiantsev.

The abbey church, the construction of which lasted several years, attracts an unusual arrangement of the facade, which is at a lower level than the interior of the temple. He who has an 41 meter high facade leads to "Stairway of the Dead" - Scaloni del Morty framed arches, niches and tombs, which until recently could see the skeletons of dead monks. At the top of the stairs are Porta dello zodiac - a masterpiece of sculpture of the 12th century. In the church itself can be accessed through the portal in the Romanesque style, made at the beginning of the 11th century, made of gray and green stone. Inside the temple are visible elements of both Gothic and Romanesque styles. On the left wall is a huge mural depicting the Annunciation and in the choruses - triptych Defendente Ferrari.

Complex Sacra di San Michele includes the ruins of the monastery of 12-15 centuries, which had five floors. At the end is Torre delle Belle Alda - Tower Beautiful Alda. A so-called "Crypt monks" probably once served as a chapel, which was shaped like an octagon and reproduces the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.