Iglesias, Church of Our Lady of Grace

The building is located inside the historic center, close to the Aragonese city walls near the ancient door called “Porta Nuova”.
The façade of Our Lady of Grace qualifies aesthetically as one of the most suggestive corners of the historic center of Iglesias.
The date of construction of the church cannot be specified, as there is no evidence of the Gothic structure, attributable to the end of the 13th century. At the time it was named after Saint Saturn, then to Our Lady of Grace.
In sedimentary stone, the building had a single nave with an apse, but today only the façade, missing the terminal, of the original structure, survives.
The church has a single-aisle plan divided into six bays delimited by pointed diaphragm arches, supporting the wooden roof with exposed beams. Some chapels have been carved into the thick perimeter walls, while only the last one on the left, before the presbytery, has a marble altar and is practicable. The presbytery, raised above the classroom, has an octagonal drum with four windows and a notched frame, which acts as a connecting element with the Renaissance dome.
Noteworthy is the particular decoration of the arch ring that leads to the presbytery, whose sixth is slightly lowered. A series of drawers houses decorative vegetable and marine motifs, mostly rosettes and shells, of the Renaissance type.
The façade is divided into two orders by a theory of arches with a simple semicircular ring, resting on peducci with various ornamental motifs, among which the predominance of the plant subject can be observed.
The lower order is divided into three mirrors by semi-hexagonal pilasters; in the central mirror, the portal is surmounted by an architrave decorated with plant motifs that rests on two equally decorated capitals. The drainage arch is round round and inside it houses a tombstone dated 1620. The ends of the eyebrow rest on two sculpted shelves.
Of the second order, the only single-hole with an acute arc and a very elaborate ring, whose internal terminal part is three-lobed, remains of the second order.
The top of the façade is flat and houses a Renaissance-era sailing bell tower flanked by dolphin-backed volutes.

History of studies
The church has been the subject of scholarly attention especially in the 20th century. Dionigi Scano, Roberto Coroneo and Gianni Murtas have made important contributions to the framing of his construction events in the historical, artistic and cultural context to which they belong. Giovanni Zedda and Filippo Pili were also interested in the devotional aspect.

Bibliography
V. Angius, entry “Iglesias”, in G. Casalis, Historical and Statistical-Commercial Geographical Dictionary of the States of His Excellency the King of Sardinia, VIII, Turin, G. Maspero, 1841, p. 442;
D. Scano, History of art in Sardinia from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, Cagliari-Sassari, Montorsi, 1907, pp. 243-244;
R. Delogu, The Architecture of the Middle Ages in Sardinia, Rome, The State Library, 1953, p. 219; G. Zedda-F.
Pili, The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Grace in Iglesias, Sanluri, Concu, 1985;
R. Coroneo, Romanesque architecture from the middle of the thousand to the early '300, Nuoro, Ilisso, 1993, sheet 157;
Notebooks of the Sanctuary, Our Lady of Grace, 1, 1997;
Diocese of Iglesias, edited by G. Murtas, series “Churches and sacred art in Sardinia”, Sestu, Zonza, 1999, pp. 117-125; R. Coroneo, Romanesque Churches of Sardinia. Cultural tourist itineraries, Cagliari, AV, 2005, p. 105.