Church of St. Michael: Free entry

The sole remnants of the structure from the Romanesque period are the tower of the belfry gate with its gemel windows and Lombard arcatures. The church itself was rebuilt entirely in 1683. Although it was built in accordance with the traditional architecture of the other churches in the Tarentaise Valley, the parish complex of Landry, including its shelter for the collection of tithes and its cemetery, nonetheless constitutes one of the most complete examples of parish construction from the Baroque period in Savoie.
The inside is characterised by the cool freshness of its painted décor, featuring abundant flowers. Depictions of the four Evangelists and the four cardinal virtues decorate the entire vaulted ceiling. The balustrade of the galleries, fashioned from stone and painted as faux marble, is fine and elegant. Its handrail is a wooden cornice.
At the entrance to the chancel, the 17th-century rood beam shows a Crucifixion in which St. Mary Magdalene has been replaced by four cherubs gathering the blood of Christ.
At the end of the chancel, the main altarpiece, which was reworked in the 19th century, forms a backdrop for the monumental tabernacle: it is decorated with statuettes under the central painting, signed Gnifeta and dated 1816, which depicts St. Michael slaying the dragon.
The two side altarpieces, of similar proportions, are marked out by their twisted or fluted columns and refer to the most common forms of worship among former mountain communities. Joseph-Marie Martel, a sculptor who worked extensively in Tarentaise, realised the statue of the Good Shepherd opposite the pulpit in 1726; the latter's sounding board, decorated with scrollwork, is topped by a polychromatic angelic trumpeter.

Group bookings available on request:
david.dereani@fondation-facim.fr (+33 (0)4 79 60 58 99)

Documentation available in English and in French