MONTANARO
(87 METRES ABOVE SEA LEVEL – 4 KM FROM CARPANETO)
Montanaro is a calm agricultural village split in two halves by torrent Riglio and divided into three different Municipal Administrations.
ST. MICHELE PARISH CHURCH
Solitary and splendid it stands out in the green countryside, the sixteenth-century Church dedicated to St. Michele Archangelo, defensor of the Jewish population and protector of the militant Christians.
The temple, Renaissance style, shows a harmonious façade in red clay-brick with cobbles inserts, it’s tripartite by two large lateral half pilasters and it’s enriched in the centre of the tympanum by a round – in jut out cotto tile – containing the half-bust of God Almighty in blessing act realised in 1980 by Don Achille Sgorbati, Zena’s parish priest.
The interior, with unique hall adorned on the two sides by two small chapels that intercommunicate, still maintains decorations and statues of the XVIII century.
An altarpiece, obtained in the apsal wall and framed by polychrome marbles, keeps an exquisite group of wooden pieces dated 1700 depicting St. Michele while he pierces with a lance the Devil’s head.
VOTIVE CHAPEL OF OUR LADY LOURDES
In the crossroads between Zena and Montanaro raises an elegant votive chapel that guards inside of a recess an exquisite statue portraying the Blessed Virgin of Lourdes.
There is also a written Dantesque maxim: “EN LA SUA VOLONTADE È NOSTRA PACE”.
(Translated by Laura Fugazzi)