Pula, Villa Santa Maria

The villa is in the historic center of the town of Pula.
The villa was built in 1838 as “Casino Randaccio” in neoclassical forms on the ruins of the ancient church of the same name. Designed by the Cagliari architect Gaetano Cima, it expresses its classicist conceptions.
Now absorbed into the town of Pula, it was originally located in the middle of the countryside along the road to Nora. However, there is nothing “rustic” about the project, on the contrary, it presents the characteristics of an urban dwelling with a park, right from the entrance with lion sculptures. The façade is ennobled by a Doric colonnade and a frieze with festoons and crowns. Inside, the most important element is the roundabout, which anticipates solutions that Cima will apply to its other buildings.

History of studies
A review of the studies can be found in the bibliography relating to the fact sheet in the volume of the “History of Art in Sardinia” on sixteenth-nineteenth-century architecture (1992).

Bibliography:
S. Naitza, Architecture from the late '600 to purist classicism. Nuoro, Ilisso, 1992, sheet 87.