Suni, Church of Santa Maria della Neve

The parish church is located in the oldest part of the urban nucleus.
The church, dedicated to the Virgin of the Snow, is the reconstruction of a Gothic-Catalan building from the first quarter of the 16th century, characterized by a square presbytery, lowered and narrower than the nave, facing ribbed crosses as well as the side chapels, according to the most common pattern in Sardinia at that time. Stone materials were reused from the monastery and the Romanesque church of Sant'Ippolito, an ancient factory that would have been used even in the following centuries for the repeated remodeling of the church.
Already in 1608, a shipyard was opened in Suni under the employ of the master Antioco Marras, working to transform the entrance cornices to two side chapels, from ogivals into round arches, following the most up-to-date construction trends in the area, where, at the beginning of the 17th century, it was built in line with the new forms of severe mannerism imported by Italy.
The church underwent other changes at the end of the 18th century, until, between 1798 and 1806, the bell tower was built by the Bosano bricklayer Antonio Selis. The bell tower, with a square plan, is divided into four orders: the first is reinforced at the corners by pillows set on a continuous molded base in trachyte, the other three, without pilasters, have smooth corners; above the bell cell, with archacute openings on the four sides, was added an onion dome, destroyed by lightning in 1911.
At the end of the first decade of the 19th century, in conjunction with the design of a new barrel roof of the aisle, the façade was raised, giving the body an anachronistically Romanesque appearance. The new time, which began in 1811, was punctuated by sub-arches set on the primitive late Gothic pillars adapted to the new taste. A chord straight on three arches was placed on the back.
In the last century, restorative restorations led to the demolition of the vault, replaced with a wooden ceiling with two sloping straight lines on five grooves.
Of the oldest structure, the presbytery and the first two chapels to the right of the altar still remain. The square grandstand, with a pointed arch shaped like cables on small rectangular feet with rounded corners, has a cross vault with ribbed ribs shaped like a shell that rests on inverted pyramid shelves.
The surviving Gothic chapels show similar coverage, but the access arches rise on straight stones with thick semicolumns, surmounted by phytomorphic capitals with double wavy and intertwined thorny branches.

Bibliography
A. Sari, “The Architectural Heritage of Suni”, in Suni and its Territory, Suni, Suni Municipal Administration, 2003.