Local tradition and Iberian innovations

Martis, church of San Pantaleo. Photo of Comune di Martis, 2007, from Sardegna DL

In Sardinia, Gothic-Catalan architecture was embedded in Romanesque and Gothic-Italian types of construction, giving life to characteristic and original solutions.
Sardinian-Hispanic architecture thus matures its first peculiarities, given by the flat, crenellated terminal of the façade (only in the south, since sloping crowning was used in the north), derived from civil architecture; from the quadrangular or polygonal shape and the small size of the presbytery, in width and height, compared to the mononave hall, along whose sides there is a series of buttresses.
The same typology of the Gothic-Catalan church has suggestions for future expansion interventions: in fact, in many cases, a series of chapels will open up among the side buttresses, intended to house the altar polyptychs commissioned by aristocratic families or by guilds and brotherhoods.
It also powerfully affects the architectural developments of the following centuries. The gravitation of Sardinia on the Iberian Pole hinders the introduction of Renaissance forms, which only appeared on the island at the end of the sixteenth century. During the seventeenth century, Mannerist churches were built in which both the weight of the local Gothic-Catalan tradition and the desire to adapt them to spaces and ornaments in the Baroque style, imposed by the counter-reform climate, is strong.
Thus, by virtue of the confluence of various and even antithetical linguistic components, the Sardinian-Iberian architecture of the 14th-17th centuries has the opportunity to become deeply embedded in the island's building practice, affecting - also from the point of view of technical solutions - the individual construction sites and production areas, to the point of overcoming pre-modern operating methods.

Update

3/7/2025 - 10:54