Bosa, Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

The historic center of Bosa was formed in the 12th century, at the foot of the castle of Serravalle, in a different place from that of the Roman and early medieval city.
It stands where there was once a church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin of Help, granted to the Order in 1606, when the Carmelites left the convent of Sant'Antonio Abate, unhealthy due to the proximity of the Temo river.
The new site, near the town gate of San Giovanni and one of the roads that connected the city with the north of the island, hosted the friars until the second half of the 19th century, when the Savoy laws on the suppression of monastic orders and the forfeiting of their assets led to the progressive abandonment of Bosa by the Carmelites.
Around 1770, the initiative was taken to demolish the old Soccolo church, which was in a poor condition and was insufficient for the activities of the religious and the population. The current building was then built, dedicated to the patron saint of the Order, completed with the new “altarpiece” façade in 1779 and officially consecrated by Bishop Murro in 1810.
The laws of 1866-67 assigned the church to the Fund for Worship and the convent adjacent to the Municipality that established elementary schools and the Gymnasium there. In 1872, the building returned to the possession of the ecclesiastical authority that accepted the exchange with the Church of La Maddalena, demolished by the Town Hall to allow the urban development of the city towards O.
The rich façade - composed according to a planar design of a Sardinian character, however, referable to the Piedmontese baroque - breaks the simplicity of the outer walls of the convent, which also constitute a homogeneous continuation on the N side, where the terminal ledge is extended on shelves.
The façade of the church is set on three descending orders, punctuated by pilasters with capitals. The lower area started out in five mirrors, in the center of which is inserted the portal, centred and surmounted by a rich nuisance at the center of which is the Order's coat of arms. Above a thick frame, the two upper orders are set up, which continue the vertical lines but reduce the mirrors to three, with a window and niche in line with the portal and crowned with concave and convex lines ending with volutes and flame vessels.
The interior has a single aisle, with a barrel roof and four side chapels on each side. The presbytery, raised, is surmounted by a hemispherical dome on plumes and is enriched, on the back wall, by a monumental and sumptuous altar in marble and stucco dated 1791.

History of studies
The church is the subject of a brief summary in Salvatore Naitza's volume on late seventeenth-century and purist architecture (1992).

Bibliography by
A. Sari, “Notes on Ecclesiastical Architecture in Bosa and its Territory”, in The Churches of Bosa, Documentation Notebooks of the Pro Loco of Bosa, Cagliari, Seleni, 1978;
S. Naitza, Architecture from the Late 17th Century to Purist Classicism. Nuoro, Ilisso, 1992, sheet 35;
A.F. Spada, The Churches of Bosa, Sestu, Zonza, 2002.