San Michele, church building in Riva Valdobbia, Alagna Valsesia, Italy

San Michele is the parish church of Riva Valdobbia, in Alagna Valsesia, with a single nave lined by side chapels. Its entire facade is covered by a Last Judgment fresco, and a giant Saint Christopher stands at the base of the left bell tower, 34.2 metres high; a taller bell tower, 43.2 metres, was added in 1661. Inside are a marble high altar of 1749, wooden choir stalls and a pulpit of 1760.

The original parish church of San Michele was destroyed in 1640 by a flood of the Vogna stream. Its functions passed to the Santa Maria oratory, built in 1473 and enlarged in 1565, whose ogival portal records that enlargement and the 1326 separation of Riva's parish from Scopa. The old facade, painted in 1596-97, and the left bell tower (34.2 m) were kept; a taller tower (43.2 m) followed in 1661, and work on the present church resumed in 1735.

The facade fresco shows the Archangel Michael separating the just from the wicked, with angels sounding the last trumpets. At the base of the old bell tower stands a giant Saint Christopher, painted so that the community and travellers who put themselves under his protection could see him from afar. The D'Enrico family of Alagna, including Melchiorre, brother of Tanzio da Varallo, is linked to these paintings.

The facade faces the open ground of Riva Valdobbia, a hamlet of Alagna Valsesia reached by road along the Vogna valley; the painted wall and the two bell towers are best seen from a few steps back. The Last Judgment is read from top to bottom, and the reclining nude among the resurrected appears to turn as you walk along the wall.

The facade fresco hides an optical trick: the naked figure of a resurrected soul, seen while walking close along the wall without looking away, appears to turn on itself. The painter is usually identified as Melchiorre d'Enrico of Alagna, younger brother of Tanzio da Varallo, working when barely in his twenties; some scholars give the Last Judgment to an older namesake who stayed in Lower Saxony.