The Basilica di San Michele Maggiore is one of the finest examples of Romanesque architecture in Pavia. Built on an earlier Lombard place of worship, it became a palatine chapel in Carolingian times and then, from the end of the 9th century, the favourite venue for royal rites, baptisms and coronations, such as that of Frederick Barbarossa held in 1155. The structure has a Latin cross plan with three naves, surmounted at the centre of the transept by a dome enclosed in an octagonal tiburium. The main façade, in sandstone, is decorated with bas-reliefs depicting sacred iconography and fantastic animals. The interior is marked by cross vaults resting on capitals carved with biblical scenes and allegorical figures. The floor of the presbytery houses a mosaic representing the twelve months of the year and, just below, the Labyrinth of Crete. Finally, in the left arm of the transept is the Theodotus Crucifix, made of silver foil probably in the second half of the 10th century.