Chiesa di San Michele Arcangelo a Pietralata

San Michele Arcangelo a Pietralata is a Parish of the Diocese of Rome, located in the North Sector, Prefecture XII, Pietralata District, 4th Municipality.It was Father Leone da Caluso, parish priest of San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, who insistently urged the religious authorities of the Vicariate to consider the need to build a proper Parish in Pietralata. In 1937, Archbishop Pietro Ercole, Secretary General of the Pontifical Work for the Preservation of the Faith and the Provision of New Churches in Rome, applied to the Governor of Rome for a licence to build the parish church with an adjoining rectory house. The licence arrived on 23 August of that year. On 21st October 1937, construction work began and ended with the blessing and inauguration on 8th October 1938.The Parish was formally erected on 23 September 1938 with the decree of the Cardinal Vicar Francesco Marchetti Selvaggiani Ad viam Tiburtinam and entrusted to the diocesan clergy of Rome.The church was consecrated at the end of the war, on 25 September 1948, by Bishop Luigi Traglia, Vicegerent of Rome, Father Vincenzo Leone Capitanata being the parish priest.The territory, formed by splitting the territory of SS. Angeli Custodi a Monte Sacro and of S. Lorenzo fuori le Mura, by decree of 15 June 1982 was determined with the following new boundaries: Via Tiburtina, starting from the height of Via di Pietralata - Via dei Monti Tiburtini up to about 300 m. after Via dei Durantini - from here, by Via breve, up to the height of the end of Via Carbonio and beyond, until reaching Via Leopoldo Pilla at the height of Via Cosimo De Giorgi. about 300 metres after Via dei Durantini - from here, by Via breve, up to the height of the end of Via del Carbonio and beyond, until reaching Via Leopoldo Pilla at the height of Via Cosimo De Giorgi - Via Leopoldo Pilla - Via Mario Canavari - ideal line that from said Via reaches the river Aniene bypassing the end of Vicolo del Casale Rocchi.The building complex is owned by the Pontifical Work for the Preservation of the Faith and the Provision of New Churches in Rome.The church was built using simple and inexpensive techniques, in keeping with the difficult times of the time.Designed by Tullio Rossi, it is hut-shaped with brick cladding. A statue of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal stands on top of the roof; the façade, above the entrance portal, bears the coat of arms of Pope Pius XI. The building is flanked by two ribbed bell towers, placed side by side.The interior has a rectangular plan. The ceiling is trussed.Beyond the entrance, on the left wall is a niche with a statue of St. Anthony of Padua. Near it, there was originally access to the baptistery, later used as a boiler room. At the same height, on the opposite wall, is a statue of St Joseph.Along the nave, before the 1960s entirely frescoed, are seven windows with stained glass mosaic windows made of Murano glass. They represent episodes from the Gospel together with symbolic elements illustrating the Sacraments. The stained glass windows were made by M.B. of Grottaferrata from designs developed by the Roman painter Giorgio Luzietti based on the instructions of Fr Aristide Sana.At the end of the nave, before the apse, on the left is a chapel dedicated to the Madonna, bordered by a large stained glass window depicting the Annunciation.On the opposite side is the chapel dedicated to the church's patron saint: St Michael. In it are two statues of the Archangel: at the top, restored after being damaged by dampness, is the plaster statue donated to the church in the 1950s and carried in procession on a lorry until 1960. Below, to the right of the older statue, is the statue of St Michael in the act of piercing the serpent with a lance. Since 2001, this statue, restored by Don Aristide Sana on the parish feast day at the end of September, has been carried in procession through the neighbourhood on the shoulders of bearers on the feast day of the Holy Archangels.In the centre of the apse is a valuable canvas reproduction of St Michael Archangel, the original of which, painted by Gudo Reni in 1635, is kept in the Church of Santa Maria Immacolata Concezione dei Cappuccini in Via Veneto in Rome. Because of its iconographic strength, the Capuchins had the work replicated during the 17th century for their churches. The one preserved in our church, like the one visible in San Francesco a Ripa, is one of these copies.On either side of the painting of St Michael the Archangel are two wall temperas painted by a young local painter, Roberto Cerbino, in the year the church was consecrated, commissioned by Don Leone Capitanata, the parish priest at the time. The painting on the left, referring to the Apocalypse, depicts Saint Michael, armed with a spear, leading the angelic powers obedient to God to victory in the battle against Lucifer and his demons. The painting on the right, on the other hand, illustrates the apparition of the Archangel in the Gargano grotto where the sanctuary dedicated to him was later built. It may be a tribute by the artist to the many Apulians living in the 1940s and 1950s in the village surrounding the church. It should be noted that for the faces of the two paintings, the painter used the features of people living in the Pietralata area. The two frescoes regained their colours and shapes in the 1980s thanks to the initiative of the parish priest Don Antonio Antonelli who, at the hands of the restorer Francesca Garavini, wanted to bring them back to the foreground after they had been covered for twenty years. At the side of the altar, a large wooden crucifix is placed on a pedestal.