Church of St. Michael the Archangel

'Mons Magnus', that is Montemagno, is a locality in the municipality of Camaiore that has had great strategic importance since the Roman period and, above all, in the Lombard period, given that the small village is on the pass that connects Lucca to the Versilia plain. Of its castle, mentioned since the 10th century and placed to control the pass, there remain traces of the walls, a cistern and the facade of the church of S. Bartolomeo, the first church of the castle village. The current church is mentioned in a document from 1129 with an annexed hospital for pilgrims, in fact the Via Romea or Francigena on the Lucca-Sarzana route passed through the Montemagno pass.
The medieval church was enlarged, raised and modified in the 1770s. The plan is a single rectangular hall, oriented to the south-east and divided into five bays. The gabled façade is closed by two corner brick pilasters and topped at the top by a triangular pediment. Both on the front and on the side elevations, the different construction materials and the original single-lancet windows clearly reveal its medieval origins and the different construction phases that led to its current form. The interior is divided into an architectural stucco apparatus, with pilasters that divide it into four bays, covered by a barrel vault with nails, and a larger chapel with a sail vault.

Facade
The façade, devoid of the original plaster, is enclosed by two corner pilasters and finished at the top by a triangular pediment. In the center is the entrance portal, framed in white marble, finished at the top by a cymatium surmounted by a pediment composed of two marble volutes, which enclose a statue of the titular Saint.

Plant
The building has a rectangular plan shape, with the major axis oriented from south-east to north-west and the entrance in the latter position. The interior has a single hall, divided into four bays, and a major chapel positioned at the back defined by a system of pillars.

Presbytery
The presbytery is housed in the main chapel and is raised by two steps from the floor of the hall, and separated from it by marble balustrades.

Structural system
The structural parts of the building consist of continuous masonry, arches, transverse arches, beams and wooden frameworks.

Coverings
The roof covering is made of terracotta tiles and bricks

Floors and paving
The building is paved with white and grey marble arranged in a checkerboard pattern.

Decorative elements
The interior of the building is marked by a plastic architectural apparatus that sees pilasters dividing the hall, in four bays, which is covered by a barrel vault with nails. The main chapel, instead, is defined by two pillars that together with a transverse arch configure a serliana motif, which was to be repeated on the back wall, by homologous painted pilasters, and which today are hidden by a whitewash, so that we end up with a square space with a vaulted ceiling, painted with pictorial illusionism, with a breakthrough towards the sky.

Choir
Placed on the counter-façade and in masonry, it is supported by three three-centred arches set on pillars, the parapet, which is configured as the attic of the composition, is divided into panels and decorated with stucco plastic elements.

Bell tower
The church has a small bell gable on the west side, now in disuse, while on the opposite side there is the eighteenth-century bell tower, plastered and with the bell cell left with the brick facing exposed.