San Michele in Foro

Stand still for a moment and look up. A wall of pale marble rises in front of you, row upon row of slender columns, each one catching the light a little differently. Around you, bicycle bells ring across the paving stones, cafe cups clink, and pigeons settle on the cornices. This is the Piazza San Michele, the old heart of Lucca. The church in front of you is San Michele in Foro, Saint Michael in the Forum.

That name is a clue, and it is worth holding on to. Lucca began as a Roman town, and its streets still follow much of the old Roman grid. The square where you are standing sits on the site of the Roman forum, the public meeting place where citizens traded, argued and heard the news. So when you walk across this piazza, you are crossing ground that has been the centre of town life for around two thousand years.

A church has stood here since the early Middle Ages. Written records mention a church on this spot well before the year 1000. The building you see today, however, was raised mostly between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries. That long building period matters. It explains why the lower parts of the church feel heavier and plainer, while the upper levels become lighter, more decorated, almost playful in their detail.

The style here is Romanesque, the round-arched building style that spread across Europe before the pointed arches of the Gothic era. In this corner of Tuscany it took a particular local form, often called Pisan or Lucchese Romanesque. Think of stacked open galleries, striped and inlaid marble, and columns lined up like the pipes of an organ. Pisa Cathedral, about twenty-five kilometres away, carries a similar spirit. In Lucca, though, the builders seem to have pushed the idea even further.

Now look carefully at the very top of the facade. Here is the first surprise. The front wall rises well above the roof of the church behind it. Walk a few steps to the side and you can see daylight through the upper galleries. There is nothing behind them but sky. The facade was built taller than the church itself, largely for show. It is a grand screen, built to impress anyone who entered the square.

It seems the medieval builders once planned to raise the nave, the long central hall of the church, to match this height. That plan was never carried out, perhaps for lack of money. So the facade stands like a stage set, beautiful from the front and surprisingly thin from the side. On a windy day, the breeze passes straight through the upper arcades.

Crowning everything is a large statue of the Archangel Michael, wings spread, standing over a dragon. Michael is the warrior angel of Christian tradition, the leader of heaven's army against evil. He is flanked by smaller angel figures. Locals like to tell a story about him. Legend has it that a precious stone was once set on the angel's finger, and that on certain clear days it could flash in the sun. Treat this as a local tale, but do look up on a bright afternoon.

Let your eyes travel slowly down the galleries. Every column is different. Some are twisted, some are carved with spirals or chevrons, some are inlaid with green and white stone. Between the arches, small marble panels show animals, hunters and strange creatures. Medieval craftsmen loved this kind of variety. To them, repetition was boring. Each column was a chance to show off a new idea, so the facade works almost like a stone sampler book.

Here is the second surprise, and most visitors miss it. Above many of the columns are small carved human heads. Some of them are not medieval at all. During a restoration in the nineteenth century, sculptors replaced worn heads with new portraits. Among them, people say, are faces of leading figures from the Italian unification of that era, such as Giuseppe Garibaldi. So a medieval facade quietly carries portraits of modern Italian politicians and soldiers.

On the right-hand corner of the facade, look for a statue of the Virgin Mary holding the Christ child. It is generally credited to Matteo Civitali, the most celebrated Lucchese sculptor of the fifteenth century. Many sources connect the statue to the city's thanks for escaping a plague. The original is kept safe inside the church, and a copy now stands on the corner outside. It is a gentle, human figure, quite different from the stern angel above.

Step inside, and the mood changes completely. After the busy facade, the interior is calm and fairly plain, with stone columns and soft light. Among the works of art, look for a painting of four saints by Filippino Lippi, a Florentine painter of the late fifteenth century. Its colours and graceful figures draw people from across the church. There is also a glazed terracotta Madonna linked to the della Robbia family, famous for their glossy blue and white ceramics.

There is music in this place too. The Puccini family served for generations as musicians and organists in Lucca, and their history is closely tied to this church. The young Giacomo Puccini, who later wrote operas such as La Bohème and Tosca, is said to have sung and played here as a boy. His birthplace, now a museum, is only a short walk away. Some evenings you may hear his music performed somewhere in the old town.

Before you leave, turn around and take in the square itself. The houses around the piazza come from many centuries, with green shutters, worn plaster and narrow lanes leading off in every direction. The statue in the square honours a local figure from Lucca's past, and people often sit at its base to rest. This is still a working square. People cross it on their way to the market, to work, to coffee.

As you walk on, glance back once more at the angel on the roof. Notice how the facade looks flat and bright from here, and thin like paper from the side streets. Listen for the bicycle bells and the footsteps on stone. Romans, medieval merchants and young Puccini all crossed this same ground. Now, for a few minutes, it is your turn.