One of the most important examples of Romanesque architecture in Italy, the Basilica of San Michele Maggiore, in Pavia, is a masterpiece.

Imperial church built in the first decades of the 12th century on a pre-existing Longobard one, the Basilica was the seat of the coronations of the emperors of the Italian Kingdom, in the period in which Pavia was its capital and here, among others, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa was crowned in 1155.