The Romanesque Churches of Sardinia

Sardinia is one of the oldest lands in Europe--there are traces of people from the Paleolithic period, 500,000 years ago, and a major civilization has left many traces from the 2nd and 3rd millennium before Christ. Located between Europe and Africa, Sardinia has known many invaders and oppressors, and remained at its core proud and unique. One of the proudest epochs was that of the Giudicata, when the Romanesque churches were built. Before that Rome had occupied Sardinia till her own fall, in the 3-5th centuries AD, leaving the island prey to Vandals and Arab forays. Justinian, emperor of Byzantium sent protection, and thence began the period of Byzantine influence, which developed into a system of autonomy for the four regions of Sardinia as they still exist. They were called Giudicata, and reigned from approximately 1000-1300 AD.  They organized ecclesiastical systems along with their political, erecting monumental Romanesque churches.

Inside Nostre Signore di Castro

We drove to the Luogodoro to see some of the lone monuments to that era. Nostre Signore di Castro, set high on the sloping green pastures, is a miniature Romanesque, with its own cloister, a small but shapely church with a simple interior, from the 12th c. A sort of Quasimodo keeps the grounds there, with his many cats and the occasional stray dog. A sweet-faced white retriever greeted us, limping though it was still young. Below us, the lands of the region spread below the still regal basilica.

Bisarccio

The Basilica Santissima di Bisarccio, a grand bastion of Romanesque, was built in the 11th c. out of the region's stunning red trachyte stone that felt such a relief after the gray granite of the Gallura region. Out of nowhere a small young white female doggie burst into our arms, crawled into our car, and had trouble leaving. Ah, the dogs of the fields, many of whom herd the sheep, but perhaps others simply roam. The young bureaucrat at the adjoining tourist office told us it was closed on Mondays. When we returned the next day, he had already closed shop.

detail of Bisarccio

Nostre Signora del Regno is now surrounded by the village of Ardara. A shapely Romanesque of a darker, more forbidding stone, it contains inside, beyond our sight, a magnificent retable (altar painting), the largest in Europe. But the village was quiet, the priest nowhere to be seen, and the house next door ignored us stubbornly.

Then we stumbled upon San Michele (we learned the name only later), unmarked and rising in an abandoned area over the highway, Pisan and Romanesque, in a soft white stone and perfect round tile roof, apparently recently restored. At first glimpse the church is breathtaking, then you realize it has an element of the 19th c. calculation in its beauty, lacking the dense medieval flavor, no doubt much restored.

Basilica di Sacarggia

12th c. mural, Sacarggia

We then saw from a distance the chef do'oeuvre, Basilica Sanctissima di Sacarggia, rising from the flat plain. The name Saccargia actually comes from the local language and means spotted, hairy cow--perhaps the Pisan architecture seemed out of place to the locals. But it is a perfect Pisan cathedral, though it has acquired 19th c. "improvements", such as an airy porch where there was once a stern medieval facade. The interior is a journey to medieval Europe with a mural in the apse, 12th c. painting, simple stylized elongated figures with wide mournful eyes. No last judgment here, these are sweet, compassionate saints telling us about the forgotten glory of Sardinia.

Interior of Basilica di Sacaraggia

Anghelu Ruju Necropolis

And then, as we drove on toward Alghero where we would spent the night, we came upon a necropolis used from 3300-1800 BC. There were 38 tombs, each for multiple burials, that had been excavated in T-shapes or irregular rectangles, or in the stony shelves of cliff-like rock. They were stone lined underground chambers, sometimes with columns, with multiple rooms and shelves. Along the rough capillaried walls friezes of bulls' heads could sometimes be distinguishable. Closer to the earth, closer to Sardinia's own soul, inside the ground, among tender high grasses.

San Gavino

The three martyr saints

Among the original inspirations for the building of churches is San Gavino in Porto Torres, where we drove among sheep and bare fields. Porto Torres had been a significant Roman settlement, the culmination of the North-South Roman road, but now it is an ordinary looking place that has more or less caught up with the present, except in the Centro Storico (historical center) where stands the 11th c. Basilica San Gavino. Constructed on the ruins of 4th c. pagan sepulcres, it is of pale soft stone and enomous--60 m long--without a facade, only two rear ends, as Jacques said. The modest door is found along one side, under an old Romanesque carved arch crumbling and soft but still digified. Inside Roman columns, from the Roman colony that had been there, stand in procession along the great length. Gavino had been a Roman sent to martyr two Christians, was seduced by their faith and martyred along with them. The three saint martyrs lie on their backs in the form of ceramic statues at one end of the interior, their well-worn toes touched countless times for their blessings. At the other end, there is a simple altar in the curve of the apse. Along the side a Roman centurion gallops on a stone horse and there is a Byzantine tablet, its closely incised Greek speaking from a different world. In the crypt are Roman sarcophagi, three of which hold the relics of the martyrs.

at Ardara

St. Giustia

On our eventual way back through the Luogodoro, we stopped again at the Ardara Romanesque church to find it open. Old women and a nun (the women may even have been my age) chanted mass in a montone, endlessly. At least we could see the Retable, which was splendid in a Renaissance crimson and gold, multiple Biblical stories told with long-limbed graceful forms painted by a Sard artist. Murals of men of the church were oddly wrapped around the stone columns, men with strong open faces, living men. The nun scolded J who had immedaitely flashed a picture. We waited through the mass till the nun exited and then we went to the front to gaze at the gorgeous painting while the women remained seated in their pews. It was our only chance to see this famous work. The women hissed to me in French not to take pictures with a flash. I said I hadn't and they said they had indeed taken note.

Another day we saw St. Giustia, a perfect masterpiece of Romanesque, with a crypt of the complicated squat columns and network of vaults, with a Roman statue who is perhaps St. Giustia.

St. Efisio

San Giovanni di Sinis

San Saturnino

But the most moving of the Romanesque style churches are the three that had been restored by the monks of St. Victor, from Marseilles. Entrusted with this task by the Pope, they worked in the style of the medieval French Midi, heavy large stone blocks with somewhat crude arches. But the result is very moving, in the small St. Efisio of Nora, whose exterior has been since ruined, or in the ravishing San Saturnino in Cagliari, or in the incredible San Giovanni of Sinis near the ancient Phoenician port of Tharros. Each of these churches had been built in the 6th c. in the Byzantine style of a simple cross with a central arched cupola, in simple stone. In each case the Victorini monks had added the long aisle we now see in churches, to make the longer base of the cross. In each of these churches you see an ancient Byzantine church, from the 500's, and the very simple Victorini additions, from the 11th c.