San Michele al Pozzo Bianco is a church in the upper town of Bergamo, on a small piazza of the same name, near Porta Sant’Agostino. The church is now in a corner next to the frescoed house of the vicar, entered by a large rounded arch.
Founded in the 8th century, it was rebuilt many times over the centuries. The present facade is from the early 20th century. Much of the interior was rebuilt in the 15th century, and covered with frescoes in a style influenced by Byzantine iconography.
The chapel to the left, completed later, has a series of frescoed panels Scenes from the Life of The Virgin Mary (1525), masterworks by Lorenzo Lotto. The central chapel and the one on the right is frescoed (1577) by Giovan Battista Guarinoni d'Averara. The latter chapel has a canvas Madonna and child with Saints Peter and Paul by Giovanni Paolo Lolmo.
On the right wall, there is a Madonna of the Rosary and Saints by Enea Salmeggia and in the counterfacade, two frescoes by Antonio Cifrondi depicting Christ and the adulterous woman and the Last Supper. The crypt has 13th-century frescoes, and one of a Enthroned Madonna and Saints, attributed to Antonio Boselli.
References:Saint-Georges de Boscherville Abbey is a former Benedictine abbey. It was founded in about 1113 by Guillaume de Tancarville on the site of an earlier establishment of secular canons and settled by monks from the Abbey of Saint-Evroul. The abbey church made of Caumont stone was erected from 1113 to 1140. The Norman builders aimed to have very well-lit naves and they did this by means of tall, large windows, initially made possible by a wooden ceiling, which prevented uplift, although this was replaced by a Gothic vault in the 13th century. The chapter room was built after the abbey church and dates from the last quarter of the 12th century.
The arrival of the Maurist monks in 1659, after the disasters of the Wars of Religion, helped to get the abbey back on a firmer spiritual, architectural and economic footing. They erected a large monastic building one wing of which fitted tightly around the chapter house (which was otherwise left as it was).