Michael, also called Saint Michael the Archangel, Archangel Michael and Saint Michael the Taxiarch is an archangel in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the Baha'i faith. The earliest surviving mentions of his name are in third- and second-century-BC Jewish works, often but not always apocalyptic, where he is the chief of the angels and archangels, and he is the guardian prince of Israel and is responsible for the care of Israel. Christianity conserved nearly all the Jewish traditions concerning him, and he is mentioned explicitly in Revelation 12:7–12, where he does battle with Satan, and in the Epistle of Jude, where the author denounces heretics by contrasting them with Michael.
Saint Michael in The Fall of the Rebel Angels by Luca Giordano
Guido Reni's Michael (in Santa Maria della Concezione church, Rome, 1636) tramples Satan. A mosaic of the same painting decorates St. Michael's Altar in St. Peter's Basilica.
Saint Michael, Archangel, painting from Melchor Pérez de Holguín, (1708)
Statue of the Archangel Michael at the University of Bonn, slaying Satan as a dragon; Quis ut Deus is inscribed on his shield
Archangels are the second-lowest rank of angel in the Christian hierarchy of angels, put forward by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite in the 5th or 6th century in his book De Coelesti Hierarchia. The word "archangel" itself is usually associated with the Abrahamic religions, but beings that are very similar to archangels are found in a number of other religious traditions.
The Annunciation by Paolo de Matteis
The four archangels, mosaics at St John's Church, Warminster
Jacob Wrestling with the Angel by Gustave Doré, 1885
Guido Reni's Archangel Michael Trampling Lucifer, 1636