Quartu Sant'Elena, Church of San Pietro di Ponte

Quartu Sant'Elena is the third city in Sardinia, after Cagliari and Sassari, and has all the characteristics of a medium-sized urban center. The modern cemetery where the church of San Pietro Apostolo stands is near a Roman bridge, on the ancient road from Carales to Ferraria.
The “sancti Petri de Pont” church was donated to the Victorian monks of Marseille in 1119 and still appears among the possessions of the French Benedictine order until the last inventory of 1338.
The church is single-naved. Its forms date back to a reconstruction carried out in the 13th century. The façade is made of limestone and sandstone, as are the arches on the ends of the sides; the rest of the structure is made of mixed stone. The classroom is punctuated by Gothic-Catalan arches.
The Romanesque façade culminates in a sailing bell tower, underneath which a mullioned window opens; a theory of arches divides the mirror horizontally. A further scan is carried out by means of two folding pilasters that reach the middle of the façade from the base, framing the portal and dividing the lower part of the mirror into three sectors: above the portal there is a molded frame, while two horizontal rows of ashlars house rooms for ceramic basins that have now been lost. Some of the arches on the S side are decorated with a taurine head or a cross held by a small hand.

History of studies
Among the first citations is the entry 'Fourth' (1847) by Vittorio Angius, in the Casalis' Dictionary '. At the beginning of the next century, there was the study of Dionigi Scano (1907), followed by Raffaello Delogu (1953). The 1972 article by Gianni Montaldo was specifically dedicated to the architectural aspects of the church; the 1988 monograph by Ida Farci on the artistic heritage of Quartu Sant'Elena. Finally, it should be noted the summary file by Roberto Coroneo (1993).

Bibliography
V. Angius, “Fourth”, in Goffredo Casalis, Historical and Statistical-Commercial Geographical Dictionary of the States of His Excellency the King of Sardinia, XVI, Turin, G. Maspero, 1847, pp. 27-52;
D. Scano, History of art in Sardinia from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, Cagliari-Sassari, Montorsi, 1907, p. 328;
R. Delogu, The Architecture of the Middle Ages in Sardinia, Rome, The State Library, 1953, pp. 191-192; Ponte G. Montaldo, “The Church of San Pietro, Quartu Sant'Elena (southern Sardinia)”, in Quarterly Technical Bulletin of the Sardinian Engineers and Architects Cultural Circle, XXIII, 1972, pp. 29-39; I. Farci, Quartu Sant'Elena. Religious art from the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century, Cagliari, Stef, 1988, pp. 51-64;
R. Serra, Sardinia, series “Romanesque Italy”, Milan, Jaca Book, 1989, pp. 358-359;
G. Struglia, The place names of the territory of Quartu Sant'Elena. Explanation-Guide, Quartu Sant'Elena, Prestampa, 1992, p. 175;
R. Coroneo, Romanesque architecture from the middle of the thousand to the early '300, Nuoro, Ilisso, 1993, sheet 42; R. Coroneo, Romanesque churches of Sardinia. Tourist-cultural itineraries, Cagliari, AV, 2005, p. 94.