Sorradile, Church of San Sebastiano

Sorradile is an agro-pastoral center located on a plateau rich in tuffs, andesites and basalts in a panoramic position on Lake Omodeo. The town has a compact layout and is perhaps identifiable with the ancient Oiratili, donated in 1156, together with the villas of San Teodoro and Vidoni (Bidonì), from Barisone Giudice d'Arborea to his wife Algaburga of Catalonia.
The work for the new parish church of Sorradile, started in 1636 with the façade and the following year with the interior, was completed in 1642 by local workers led by Antoni Pina, a local operator who combined basic architectural skills with a strong decorative taste typical of Gothic-Catalan “picapedrers” but with a marked vernacular accent.
The church, therefore, has a popular and eclectic imprint, capable of merging elements drawn from the Romanesque, Gothic-Catalan, Renaissance and Baroque repertoire.
The interior has a single aisle covered by a barrel vault reinforced by transverse arches; the main chapel and the side chapels are barrel-vaulted, according to a plan in line with the new directives imposed by the Counter-Reformation.
The knowledge of Renaissance instances of Italian brands is revealed in the use of barrel vaults, cassette arches, broken eardrums and notched cornices that cover the entire perimeter of the vault. The rich bas-relief ornamentation that covers the pillars, arches and underarches attests to the skill and imagination of local stonemasons in engraving pink volcanic stone with a sensitivity that is still Iberian in its imprint.
The façade also responds to the same combinatorial taste: punctuated in the lower band by four ribbed Corinthian pilasters, it is dominated by an impressive rectangular portal surmounted by a broken curvilinear tympanum with a serrated frame in a manneristic style.
The crowning is characterized by the large semicircular pediment resting on an entablature consisting of panels decorated with diamond tips and rose windows. Two leonine protomes and a small rosette complete the prospectus.
The model of the semicircular pediment with side flaps was repeated in numerous churches on the island throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, as can be seen from the examples of the Saint Sophia of San Vero Milis and the church of the Convent of Pozzomaggiore.

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
F. Segni Pulvirenti - A. Sari, Late Gothic and Renaissance-influenced architecture. Nuoro, Ilisso, 1994, sheet 81.