Fénis Castle
Fénis Castle is an Italian medieval castle located in the town of Fénis. It is one of the most famous castles in Aosta Valley, for its architecture and its many towers and battlemented walls has become one of the major tourist attractions of the region; the castle first appears in a document in 1242 as a property of the Viscounts of Aosta, the Challant family. At that time it was a simple keep surrounded by walls. From 1320 to 1420, under the lordship of Aymon of Challant and of his son Boniface I of Challant, the castle was expanded to the actual appearance. Under Aymon's lordship the castle got its pentagonal layout, the external boundary wall and many of the towers. In 1392 Boniface of Challant began a second building campaign to build the staircase and the balconies in the inner courtyard and the prison, he commissioned Piedmontese painter Giacomo Jaquerio to paint frescoes on the chapel and on the inner courtyard. Under Boniface I the castle reached its greatest splendor: it was a rich court surrounded by a vegetable plot, a vineyard and a garden where the lord and his guests could relax.
The castle belonged to the lords of Challant until 1716, when Georges-François of Challant had to sell it to Count Baldassarre Castellar of Saluzzo Paesana in order to pay his debts, for the castle was the beginning of a period of decline. It became a stable and a barn. In 1895 architect Alfredo d'Andrade purchased it and started a restoration campaign to secure the damaged structures. In 1935 a second campaign by De Vecchi and Mesturino completed the restoration and gave the castle the current appearance; the rooms were provided with wood period furniture. The castle is today owned by the Autonomous Region Aosta Valley; the castle is located in the town of Fénis in the Aosta Valley region, at about 13 km from the city of Aosta. The keep, it is surrounded by a double boundary wall with battlements and by a series of watchtowers linked by a walkway. Despite its impressive defensive structure, the castle is situated at the top of a small knoll and not of a promontory or another inaccessible and defensible place.
In fact it was not built for military purposes, but to serve as a prestigious residence for the Challant family. The inner courtyard, at the centre of the keep, shows a semi-circular stone staircase and wood balconies. At the top of the staircase a 15th-century fresco features Saint George killing the dragon, while the walls of the balconies are decorated with images of sages and prophets and proverbs in old French; the frescoes are attributed to a painter from the school of Jaquerio. The interior of the castle is divided into three floors: on the ground floor it is possible to visit the weaponry, the kitchen, the woodshed and the storage tank to collect rainwater. On the first floor there were the rooms of the lords of the castle, the chapel with frescoes by Giacomo Jaquerio and his school and the court; the second floor, in the attic, is not visitable. List of castles in Italy Fénis castle on www.lovevda.it Le château de Fénis Fénis unofficial tourism website
Michael (archangel)
Michael is an archangel in Judaism and Islam. In Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Lutheran traditions, he is called "Saint Michael the Archangel" and "Saint Michael". In the Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox religions, he is called "Saint Michael the Taxiarch". Michael is mentioned three times in the Book of Daniel; the idea that Michael was the advocate of the Jews became so prevalent that, in spite of the rabbinical prohibition against appealing to angels as intermediaries between God and his people, Michael came to occupy a certain place in the Jewish liturgy. In the New Testament Michael leads God's armies against Satan's forces in the Book of Revelation, where during the war in heaven he defeats Satan. In the Epistle of Jude Michael is referred to as "the archangel Michael". Christian sanctuaries to Michael appeared in the 4th century, when he was first seen as a healing angel, over time as a protector and the leader of the army of God against the forces of evil. Michael is mentioned three times in all in the Book of Daniel.
The prophet Daniel experiences a vision after having undergone a period of fasting. Daniel 10:13-21 describes Daniel's vision of an angel who identifies Michael as the protector of Israel. At Daniel 12:1, Daniel is informed that Michael will arise during the "time of the end"; the Book of Revelation describes a war in heaven. After the conflict, Satan is thrown to earth along with the fallen angels, where he still tries to "lead the whole world astray". In the Epistle of Jude 1:9, Michael is referred to as an "archangel". A reference to an "archangel" appears in the First Epistle to the Thessalonians 4:16; this archangel who heralds the second coming of Christ is not named, but is associated with Michael. Michael, is one of the two archangels mentioned alongside Jibrail. In the Quran, Michael is mentioned once only, in Sura 2:98: "Whoever is an enemy to God, His angels and His messengers, Jibrail and Mikhail! God is an enemy to the disbelievers." Some Muslims believe that the reference in Sura 11:69 is Michael, one of the three angels who visited Abraham.
According to rabbinic Jewish tradition, Michael acted as the advocate of Israel, sometimes had to fight with the princes of the other nations and with the angel Samael, Israel's accuser. Michael's enmity with Samael dates from the time. Samael took hold of the wings of Michael. Michael said "May The Lord rebuke you" to Satan for attempting to claim the body of Moses; the idea that Michael was the advocate of the Jews became so prevalent that in spite of the rabbinical prohibition against appealing to angels as intermediaries between God and his people, Michael came to occupy a certain place in the Jewish liturgy: "When a man is in need he must pray directly to God, neither to Michael nor to Gabriel." There were two prayers written beseeching him as the prince of mercy to intercede in favor of Israel: one composed by Eliezer ha-Kalir, the other by Judah ben Samuel he-Hasid. But appeal to Michael seems to have been more common in ancient times, thus Jeremiah is said to have addressed a prayer to him.
The rabbis declare that Michael entered upon his role of defender at the time of the biblical patriarchs. Thus, according to Rabbi Eliezer ben Jacob, it was Michael who rescued Abraham from the furnace into which he had been thrown by Nimrod, it was Michael, the "one that had escaped", who told Abraham that Lot had been taken captive, who protected Sarah from being defiled by Abimelech. He announced to Sarah that she would bear a son and he rescued Lot at the destruction of Sodom, it is said that Michael prevented Isaac from being sacrificed by his father by substituting a ram in his place, saved Jacob, while yet in his mother's womb, from being killed by Samael. Michael prevented Laban from harming Jacob.. It was Michael who afterwards blessed him; the midrash Exodus Rabbah holds that Michael exercised his function of advocate of Israel at the time of the Exodus when Satan accused the Israelites of idolatry and declared that they were deserving of death by drowning in the Red Sea. Michael is said to have destroyed the army of Sennacherib.
The early Christians regarded some of the martyrs, such as Saint George and Saint Theodore, as military patrons. The earliest and most famous sanctuary to Michael in the ancient Near East was associated with healing waters, it was the Michaelion built in the early 4th century by Emperor Constantine at Chalcedon, on the site of an earlier Temple called Sosthenion. A painting of the Archangel slaying a serpent became a major art piece at the Michaelion after Constantine defeated Licinius near there in 324 leading to the standard iconography of Archangel Michael as a warrior saint slaying a dragon; the Michaelion was a magnificent church and in time became a model for hundreds of other churches in E
Via Francigena
The Via Francigena is the common name of an ancient road and pilgrim route running from France to Rome and Apulia, where there were the ports of embarkation for the Holy Land, though it is considered to have its starting point on the other side of the English Channel, in the cathedral city of Canterbury. As such, the route passes through England, France and Italy; the route was known in Italy as the "Via Francigena" or the "Via Romea Francigena". In medieval times it was an important road and pilgrimage route for those wishing to visit the Holy See and the tombs of the apostles Peter and Paul. In the Middle Ages, Via Francigena was the major pilgrimage route to Rome from the north; the route was first documented as the "Lombard Way", was first called the Iter Francorum in the Itinerarium sancti Willibaldi of 725, a record of the travels of Willibald, bishop of Eichstätt in Bavaria. It was "Via Francigena-Francisca" in Italy and Burgundy, the "Chemin des Anglois" in the Frankish Kingdom and the "Chemin Romieux", the road to Rome.
The name Via Francigena is first mentioned in the Actum Clusio, a parchment of 876 in the Abbey of San Salvatore at Monte Amiata. At the end of the 10th century Sigeric the Serious, the Archbishop of Canterbury, used the Via Francigena to and from Rome in order to receive his pallium. Itineraries to Rome include the Leiðarvísir og borgarskipan of the Icelandic traveller Nikolás Bergsson and the one from Philip Augustus of France. Two somewhat differing maps of the route appear in manuscripts of Matthew Paris, Historia Anglorum, from the 13th century; the Welshman Rhodri Mawr in AD 880 and his grandson Howell the Good in 945 are both known to have visited Rome towards the end of their lives, but it is not known whether they went by land or by the dangerous and pirate-infested sea route via Gibraltar. Reports of journeys before Sigeric can only be apocryphal. We may be quite certain that the Benedictine William of St-Thierry used the roads towards Rome on several occasions at the end of the 11th century.
The return journey by sea was to be easier, thanks to the prevailing south-westerly winds, but tacking down to the Mediterranean would have made a long journey indeed. A statement that a historical figure "died in Rome" may have been a historical falsity, but a metaphorical truth; the Via Francigena was not a single road, like a Roman road, paved with stone blocks and provided at intervals with a change of horses for official travellers. Rather, it comprised several possible routes that changed over the centuries as trade and pilgrimage waxed and waned. Depending on the time of year, the political situation, the relative popularity of the shrines of the saints situated along the route, travellers may have used any of three or four crossings of the Alps and the Apennines; the Lombards financed the maintenance and security of the section of road through their territories as a trading route to the north from Rome, avoiding enemy-held cities such as Florence. Another important point is that unlike Roman roads, the Via Francigena did not connect cities, but relied more on abbeys.
Circa 990 AD, Archbishop Sigeric journeyed from Canterbury to Rome and back again but only documented his itinerary on the return journey. Sigeric's return journey consisted of 80 stages averaging about 20 km a day, for a total of some 1,700 km. Most modern-day pilgrims would wish to follow Sigeric's documented route in the reverse order, i.e. from Canterbury to Rome, so would journey from Canterbury to the English coast before crossing the Channel to Sumeran landing at the point where the seaside village of Wissant now lies. From there the modern-day pilgrim must travel to the places Sigeric knew as "Gisne", "Teranburh", "Bruaei", "Atherats", before continuing on to Reims, Châlons-sur-Marne, Bar-sur-Aube, Besançon, Pontarlier and Saint-Maurice. From Saint-Maurice they must traverse the Great St. Bernard Pass to Aosta and from Aosta they must pass through Ivrea, Pavia, Pontremoli, Aulla, Lucca, San Gimignano, Siena, San Quirico d'Orcia, Bolsena and Sutri before reaching the city of Rome. From Rome the path followed for a long stretch the Via Appia or the parallel Via Latina up to Benevento.
From that town Via Traiana was taken up the Campanian Apennines and Daunian Mountains, where Crepacore castle stood, a fortress held by the Knights of Jerusalem in order to guarantee the safety of pilgrims along the mountain stretch. The road therefore reached Troia, in the high plain of Tavoliere delle Puglie, continued towards Bari and Otranto, the main ports of embarkation for the Holy Land. Today some pilgrims still follow in Sigeric's ancient footsteps and travel on foot, on horseback or by bicycle on the Via Francigena, although there are far fewer pilgrims on this route than on the Way of St. James pilgrims' route to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. 1,200 pilgrims were estimated to have walked the VF in 2012. One reason for this is a lack of infrastructure and suitable support facilities. Affordable pilgrims' accommodation and other facilities can be hard to come by for those traveling along the route. In 2010, James Saward-Anderson and Maxwell Hannah ran the entire route for Water Aid.
They completed the route unassisted in 58 days. Due to the scarcity of dedicated pilgrims' accommodation along the Via Francigena, pilg
Church of the Holy Sepulchre
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. The church contains, according to traditions dating back to at least the fourth century, the two holiest sites in Christianity: the site where Jesus of Nazareth was crucified, at a place known as "Calvary" or "Golgotha", Jesus' empty tomb, where he is said to have been buried and resurrected; the tomb is enclosed by an 19th-century shrine called the Aedicula. The Status Quo, a 260-year-old understanding between religious communities, applies to the site. Within the church proper are the last four Stations of the Via Dolorosa, representing the final episodes of Jesus' Passion; the church has been a major Christian pilgrimage destination since its creation in the fourth century, as the traditional site of the Resurrection of Christ, thus its original Greek name, Church of the Anastasis. Today, the wider complex accumulated during the centuries around the Church of the Holy Sepulchre serves as the headquarters of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, while control of the church itself is shared among several Christian denominations and secular entities in complicated arrangements unchanged for over 160 years, some for much longer.
The main denominations sharing property over parts of the church are the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic, to a lesser degree the Coptic Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox and Ethiopian Orthodox. Meanwhile, Protestants have no permanent presence in the Church; some Protestants prefer the Garden Tomb, elsewhere in Jerusalem, as a more evocative site to commemorate Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. In 70 AD, the siege of Jerusalem by Emperor Titus saw the destruction of the Second Temple. Sixty years in 130 AD, the Roman emperor Hadrian started a Roman colony in Jerusalem, c. 135, ordered that a cave containing a rock-cut tomb be filled in to create a flat foundation for a temple dedicated to Jupiter or Venus. The temple referred to as Jupiter Capitolinus, remained until the early 4th century. After seeing a vision of a cross in the sky in 312, Constantine the Great converted to Christianity, signed the Edict of Milan legalising the religion, sent his mother Helena to Jerusalem to look for Christ's tomb.
With the help of Bishop of Caesarea Eusebius and Bishop of Jerusalem Macarius, three crosses were found near a tomb, leading the Romans to believe that they had found Calvary. Constantine ordered in about 326. After the temple was torn down and its ruins removed, the soil was removed from the cave, revealing a rock-cut tomb that Helena and Macarius identified as the burial site of Jesus. In 327, Constantine and Helena separately commissioned the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem to commemorate the birth of Jesus. Constantine's church was built as separate constructs over the two holy sites: the great basilica, an enclosed colonnaded atrium with the traditional site of Calvary in one corner, across a courtyard, a rotunda called the Anastasis, where Helena and Macarius believed Jesus to have been buried; the church was consecrated on 13 September 335. Every year, the Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates the anniversary of the Dedication of the Temple of the Resurrection of Christ; this building was destroyed by a fire in May of 614 A.
D when the Sassanid Empire, under Khosrau II, captured the True Cross. In 630, the Emperor Heraclius rebuilt the church after recapturing the city. After Jerusalem came under Arab rule, it remained a Christian church, with the early Muslim rulers protecting the city's Christian sites, prohibiting their destruction or use as living quarters. A story reports that the Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab visited the church and stopped to pray on the balcony, he feared that future generations would misinterpret this gesture, taking it as a pretext to turn the church into a mosque. Eutychius added; the building suffered severe damage due to an earthquake in 746. Early in the ninth century, another earthquake damaged the dome of the Anastasis; the damage was repaired in 810 by Patriarch Thomas. In the year 841, the church suffered a fire. In 935, the Orthodox Christians prevented the construction of a Muslim mosque adjacent to the Church. In 938, a new fire came close to the rotunda. In 966, due to a defeat of Muslim armies in the region of Syria, a riot broke out, followed by reprisals.
The basilica was burned again. The doors and roof were burnt, the Patriarch John VII was murdered. On 18 October 1009, Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the complete destruction of the church as part of a more general campaign against Christian places of worship in Palestine and Egypt; the damage was extensive, with few parts of the early church remaining, the roof of the rock-cut tomb damaged. Some partial repairs followed. Christian Europe reacted with shock and expulsions of Jews, serving as an impetus to Crusades. In wide-ranging negotiations between the Fatimids and the Byzantine Empire in 1027–28, an agreement was reached whereby the new Caliph Ali az-Zahir agreed to allow the rebuilding and redecoration of the Church; the rebuilding was completed wi
Mont-Saint-Michel
Le Mont-Saint-Michel is an island and mainland commune in Normandy, France. The island is located about one kilometer off the country's northwestern coast, at the mouth of the Couesnon River near Avranches and is 7 hectares in area; the mainland part of the commune is 393 hectares in area so that the total surface of the commune is 400 hectares. As of 2015, the island has a population of 50; the island has held strategic fortifications since ancient times and since the 8th century AD has been the seat of the monastery from which it draws its name. The structural composition of the town exemplifies the feudal society that constructed it: on top, the abbey and monastery; the commune's position—on an island just a few hundred metres from land—made it accessible at low tide to the many pilgrims to its abbey, but defensible as an incoming tide stranded, drove off, or drowned would-be assailants. The Mont remained unconquered during the Hundred Years' War; the reverse benefits of its natural defence were not lost on Louis XI, who turned the Mont into a prison.
Thereafter the abbey began to be used as a jail during the Ancien Régime. One of France's most recognisable landmarks, visited by more than 3 million people each year, the Mont Saint-Michel and its bay are on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. Over 60 buildings within the commune are protected in France as monuments historiques. Now a rocky tidal island, the Mont occupied dry land in prehistoric times; as sea levels rose, erosion reshaped the coastal landscape, several outcrops of granite emerged in the bay, having resisted the wear and tear of the ocean better than the surrounding rocks. These included Lillemer, the Mont Dol and Mont Tombe called Mont Saint-Michel. Mont Saint-Michel consists of leucogranite which solidified from an underground intrusion of molten magma about 525 million years ago, during the Cambrian period, as one of the younger parts of the Mancellian granitic batholith; the Mont has a circumference of about 960 m and its highest point is 92 m above sea level. The tides can vary at 14 metres between highest and lowest water marks.
Popularly nicknamed "St. Michael in peril of the sea" by medieval pilgrims making their way across the flats, the mount can still pose dangers for visitors who avoid the causeway and attempt the hazardous walk across the sands from the neighbouring coast. Polderisation and occasional flooding have created salt marsh meadows that were found to be ideally suited to grazing sheep; the well-flavoured meat that results from the diet of the sheep in the pré salé makes agneau de pré-salé, a local specialty that may be found on the menus of restaurants that depend on income from the many visitors to the mount. The connection between the Mont Saint-Michel and the mainland has changed over the centuries. Connected by a tidal causeway uncovered only at low tide, this was converted into a raised causeway in 1879, preventing the tide from scouring the silt around the mount; the coastal flats have been polderised to create pastureland, decreasing the distance between the shore and the island, the Couesnon River has been canalised, reducing the dispersion of the flow of water.
These factors all encouraged silting-up of the bay. On 16 June 2006, the French prime minister and regional authorities announced a €200 million project to build a hydraulic dam using the waters of the Couesnon and the tides to help remove the accumulated silt, to make Mont Saint-Michel an island again; the construction of the dam began in 2009. The project includes the removal of the causeway and its visitor car park. Since 28 April 2012, the new car park on the mainland has been located 2.5 kilometres from the island. Visitors can use shuttles to cross the causeway. On 22 July 2014, the new bridge by architect Dietmar Feichtinger was opened to the public; the light bridge allows the waters to flow around the island and improves the efficiency of the now operational dam. The project, which cost €209 million, was opened by President François Hollande. On rare occasions, tidal circumstances produce an high "supertide"; the new bridge was submerged on 21 March 2015 by the highest sea level for at least 18 years, as crowds gathered to snap photos.
The original site was founded by an Irish hermit. Mont Saint-Michel was used in the sixth and seventh centuries as an Armorican stronghold of Gallo-Roman culture and power until it was ransacked by the Franks, thus ending the trans-channel culture that had stood since the departure of the Romans in 460. From the fifth to the eighth century, Mont Saint-Michel belonged to the territory of Neustria and, in the early ninth century, was an important place in the marches of Neustria. Before the construction of the first monastic establishment in the 8th century, the island was called Mont Tombe. According to a legend, the archangel Michael appeared in 708 to Aubert of Avranches, the bishop of Avranches, instructed him to build a church on the rocky islet. Unable to defend his kingdom against the assaults of the Vikings, the king of the Franks agreed to grant the Cotentin
Aosta Valley
The Aosta Valley is a mountainous autonomous region in northwestern Italy. It is bordered by Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France, to the west, Switzerland, to the north and by the Metropolitan City of Turin in the region of Piedmont, Italy, to the south and east. Covering an area of 3,263 km2 and with a population of about 128,000 it is the smallest, least populous, least densely populated region of Italy, it is the only Italian region, not sub-divided into provinces. Provincial administrative functions are provided by the regional government; the region is divided into 74 comuni. Italian and French are the official languages, though much of the native population speak Valdôtain, a dialect of Arpitan, as their home language; the regional capital is Aosta. The Aosta Valley is an Alpine valley which with its tributary valleys includes the Italian slopes of Mont Blanc, Monte Rosa, Gran Paradiso and the Matterhorn; this makes it the highest region in Italy by list of Italian regions by highest point. The valleys above 1,600 metres, annually have a Cold Continental Climate.
In this climate the snow season is long, as long as 8 or 9 months at the highest points. During the summer, mist occurs every day; these areas are the wettest in the western Alps. Temperatures are low, between −7 °C and −3 °C in January, in July between 20 °C and 35 °C. In this area is the town of Rhêmes-Notre-Dame, which may be the coldest town in the Western Alps and where the winter average temperature is around −7 °C. Areas between 2,000 and 3,500 metres have a Tundra Climate, where every month has an average temperature below 10 °C; this climate may be a kind of more severe Cold Oceanic Climate, with a low summer average but mild winters, sometimes above −3 °C near lakes, or a more severe Cold Continental Climate, with a low winter average. Temperature averages in Pian Rosà, at 3,400 metres high, are − 1.4 °C in July. It is the coldest place in Italy. In the past, above 3,500 metres, all months had an average temperature below freezing, with a Perpetual Frost Climate. In recent years though there was a rise in temperatures.
See as an example the data for Pian Rosà. The first inhabitants of the Aosta Valley were Celts and Ligures, whose language heritage remains in some local placenames. Rome conquered the region from the local Salassi around 25 BC and founded Augusta Prætoria Salassorum to secure the strategic mountain passes, they went on to build bridges and roads through the mountains. Thus, the name Valle d'Aosta means "Valley of Augustus". In 1031–1032, Humbert I of Savoy, the founder of the House of Savoy, received the title Count of Aosta from Emperor Conrad II of the Franconian line and built himself a commanding fortification at Bard. Saint Anselm of Canterbury was born in Aosta in 1033 or 1034; the region was divided among fortified castles, in 1191, Thomas I of Savoy found it necessary to grant to the communes a Charte des franchises which preserved autonomy—rights that were fiercely defended until 1770, when they were revoked in order to tie Aosta more to Piedmont, but which were again demanded during post-Napoleonic times.
In the mid-13th century, Emperor Frederick II made the County of Aosta a duchy, its arms charged with a lion rampant were carried in the Savoy arms until the reunification of Italy in 1870. The region remained part of Savoy lands, with the exceptions of French occupations from 1539 to 1563 in 1691 between 1704 and 1706, it was ruled by the First French Empire between 1800 and 1814. During French rule, it was part of Aoste arrondissement in Doire department; as part of the Kingdom of Sardinia, it joined the new Kingdom of Italy in 1861. The region gained special autonomous status after the end of World War II. For more than 20 years the valley has been dominated by autonomist regional parties; the last regional election was held in May 2018. On 27 June 2018 Nicoletta Spelgatti of the Lega Nord was elected president by the region's cabinet, she is the first Lega Nord member to hold the position. The population density of Aosta Valley is by far the lowest of the Italian regions. In 2008, 38.9 inhabitants per km2 were registered in the region, whereas the average national figure was 198.8, though the region has extensive uninhabitable areas of mountain and glacier, with a substantial part of the population living in the central valley.
Migration from tributary valleys has now been stemmed by generous regional support for agriculture and tourist development. The population is growing but steadily. Negative population growth since 1976 has been more than offset by immigration; the region has one of Italy's lowest birth rates, with a rising average age. This, too, is compensated by immigration, since most immigrants arriving in the region are younger people working in the tourist industry. Between 1991 and 2001, the population of Aosta Valley grew by 3.1%, the highest growth among the Italian regions. With a negative natural population growth, this is due to positive net migration
Sant'Ambrogio di Torino
Sant'Ambrogio di Torino is a comune in the Metropolitan City of Turin in the Italian region Piedmont, located about 25 km west of Turin in the Susa Valley. Sant'Ambrogio di Torino borders the municipalities of Caprie, Villar Dora, Chiusa di San Michele and Valgioie; the ancient thousand-year abbey of the Sacra di San Michele, founded in the years between 983 and 987, is located within the municipality at the top of Mount Pirchiriano. The town's sights include several medieval towers, the 13th century castle and walls, a Romanesque bell tower from the 12th century and remains of the 11th century church of San Pietro; the Historical Archive of the Municipality of Sant'Ambrogio di Torino preserves documents from the year 1553. The archive of the Parish of San Giovanni Vincenzo holds records from the year 1580 onwards, when the Parish became independent of the Sacra di San Michele. Since 1810 the parish of San Giovanni Vincenzo in Sant'Ambrogio di Torino, has taken care of the conservation of Breviary of San Michele della Chiusa, a liturgical text of 1315 in two volumes which shows the annual cycle of prayers of the monks of the Sacra di San Michele, contains parts of melodies sung with notations typical of this monastery, with forms not found in Gregorian texts of other monasteries.
Sant'Ambrogio di Torino is twinned with: Sant'Ambrogio sul Garigliano, Italy Sant'Ambrogio di Valpolicella, Italy Media related to Sant'Ambrogio di Torino at Wikimedia Commons Official website
