Monteleone Rocca Doria, Church of Sant'Antonio Abate

Monteleone Rocca Doria, one of the smallest towns in Sardinia, is perched on the southern coast of a relief of limestone tuff called Su Monte, almost entirely enclosed by the waters of the artificial lake of Alto Temo. The name of the town derives from a fortress built by the powerful Doria family, the “Monte Leonis castrum”, of which we have news in the 14th century. The church of Sant'Antonio Abate, also known as Sant'Antoni de su Fogu, is near the cemetery on the outskirts of the town.
There is no documentary evidence of the medieval factory, which can be placed at the beginning of the 13th century due to its architectural features. The Romanesque church, in limestone ashlars, had a single room, with an E-shaped apse. Today it has no arches below the basin, but it has stacked shelves. The sloping façade is difficult to read: perhaps reconstructed, it has a sailing bell tower and a heavy layer of plaster.

History of studies
The history of studies on the church of Sant'Antonio Abate includes the entry “Monteleone” by Vittorio Angius, in the Casalis “Dictionary” (1843) and then takes a leap of almost a century with the monograph by Domenico Arru (1980). The monument was included in a repertoire of rural architecture in 1989, edited by Salvatore Pirisinu, while in 1993 it was Roberto Coroneo's card in the volume on Romanesque architecture in Sardinia.

Bibliography
V. Angius, “Monteleone”, in G. Casalis, Historical, Statistical and Commercial Geographical Dictionary of the States by H.M. the King of Sardinia, XI, Turin, G. Maspero, 1843, pp. 243-246;
D. Arru, Monteleone Roccadoria, Sassari, Dessì, 1980, p. 63; “Repertoire”, edited by S. Pirisinu, in The Churches in the Green.
Rural religious architecture in the province of Sassari, curated by M. Brigaglia, Sassari, Sassari, Provincial Administration of Sassari, 1989, p. 171;
R. Coroneo, Romanesque architecture from the mid-thousand to the early 1300s. Nuoro, Ilisso, 1993, file 138;
R. Coroneo, Romanesque Churches of Sardinia. Tourist-cultural itineraries, Cagliari, AV, 2005, p. 49.