Bosa, Church of Our Lady of the Rosary

The Church of the Virgin of SS. Rosario is located about the middle of Corso Vittorio Emanuele, the main artery of the historic core of the nineteenth-century city, but already a prestigious seat of noble palaces and Jesuit properties, to which was added, almost adjacent to the church, the impressive College of the Order, transformed into a Seminary under the government of Bishop Giovanni Antonio Cossu (1785-1796).
The date of its foundation is unknown, but probably the existing building, extensively remodeled in the 19th century, is located on the site of an older church.
The façade is divided into two orders: in the lowest one, encased by narrow pilasters and raised on a slightly projecting plinth, the curved portal opens, with a rich exhibition in manneristic forms inspired by cultured but declined according to the vernacular and chromatic-planar version proposed several times by local workers. It is perhaps the only wreck of the oldest factory: the pilasters, just decorated with strip frames and rosette patterns, are finished from capitals to framed and surmounted by an lintel moved by a modular diamond pattern, to which is added a semicircular tympanum interrupted in the center by the image of the Virgin and Child in low relief.
The second order of the façade appears to be strongly conditioned by the baroque forms of the Carmine church: two flat pilasters with ionic capitals divide it into three mirrors; in the middle one there is a curved window surmounted by the bulky public clock placed there in 1875. The crowning is played, like Carmine, on concave and convex lines, ending with swirls and flame vessels.
The interior, with cross roofs and underarches that mark the spans, shows nothing remarkable; the side altars in painted stuccos are dedicated to Saint Dominic, the Virgin of Health, Saint Nicholas and Saint Anthony of Padua.

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 Puristic Classicism, series “History of Art in Sardinia”, Nuoro, Ilisso, 1992; A.F. Spada, The Churches of Bosa, Sestu, Zonza, 2002.