Semestene, Church of San Giorgio

The town of Semestene, agricultural and pastoral at the foot of the volcanic Mount Benazzosu (m 587), is located on a basaltic plateau gently inclined towards S and squared by the typical dry stone walls of the “tancas”.
The renovation of the old parish church dating back to the 12th century, dedicated to Saint George, began at the beginning of the third decade of the 17th century. In 1623, the date engraved in the second transverse arch, the work was already half done and in 1688, when the work on the churchyard was completed, it had to be almost finished. In 1704, however, the vaults of the nave were restored and the bell tower was completed by the Bonorvese masters Juan Francisco Tola and Juan Baptista Coco.
As a single room divided into four bays of drumsticks, with a slightly lower and narrower presbytery, the church of San Giorgio now shows that it belongs entirely to the new Italian-derived taste, with the exception of the ribbed cross vault with pendulous gemstone from the fourth bay, the closest to the presbytery, attributable to the first late-Gothic structure. The other bays, on the other hand, have a barrel vault, just as they are barrel vaulted, on classical frames, the side chapels that open onto the central aisle by means of round arches on drummed Tuscan pillars.
The façade, with a late Renaissance design and simple but original design, preserves a plateresque trace in the moldings of the base with volutes and rosettes. It is divided into two orders by a projecting bull-shaped frame and opens into the beautiful arched portal. The latter, manneristically flanked by grooved pilasters ruffled on high plinths that support a broken and highlighted eardrum, and crossed by a typically classicistic dentition, has late-Gothic jambs adorned by three columns in a bundle with a cylindrical capital, consisting of a spiral with spherules and diamond tips that reproduces the motif of the rose window of the Bonorva parish church, derived from Gothic-Catalan models. From the same Bonorvese church, the manneristic motif of the double crowning frame, surmounted by a lily cross, has also been borrowed.

History of studies
The church is the subject of a brief summary in the volume by Francesca Segni Pulvirenti and Aldo Sari on late Gothic and Renaissance architecture (1994).

Bibliography
V. Mossa, From Gothic to Baroque in Sardinia, Sassari, 1982;
F. Segni Pulvirenti - A. Sari, Late Gothic and Renaissance Architecture. Nuoro, Ilisso, 1994, sheet 44.

How to get there
You leave the “Carlo Felice” at the height of the Cadreas di Bonorva cantoniera and enter, towards O, on the road to Semestene where you arrive (about 4 km) after crossing a wide valley dominated north by the Cossoine heights and south by the Campeda plateau. The church is located in a scenic position.