Usini, Church of the Holy Cross

The territory of Usini is rich in archaeological documentation starting from prehistoric times. Also known as Santa Maria del Cimitero or Madonna de s'Ena frisca, the church of Santa Maria is governed by the confraternity of Santa Croce, from which the alternative denomination derives.
Documentary attestations of the “sancta Maria d'Usune” can be found in the “Condaghe di San Pietro di Silki” (11th-13th century), but they do not provide information on the date the church was built, presumably at two distinct times between the end of the 13th and the 14th century.
Of the Romanesque limestone church, with a single room with an E-shaped apse, the façade and parts of the sides concluded by a frame and a theory of arches on peducci remain. The same frame runs horizontally on the façade, where it delimits the pediment. The slopes are decorated with a series of narrow and elongated, pointed arches, which can also be found below the frame.
The transept and the pointed windows refer to the second building phase. Subsequently, a series of chapels, the sacristy and the bell tower were built.

History of studies
The historiographical history of the church of Santa Croce is based on the entry 'Usini' (1853) by Vittorio Angius in the Casalis' Dictionary '. The article by Maria Cristina Cannas and the publication by Gianpiero Sanna was published in 1992; the following year it was Roberto Coroneo's profile in the volume on Romanesque architecture in Sardinia.

Bibliography
V. Angius, “Usini”, in G. Casalis, Historical, Statistical and Commercial Geographical Dictionary of the States by H.M. the King of Sardinia, XXIII, Turin, G. Maspero, 1853, p. 435;
M.C. Cannas, “Sculptural decorations in the Cistercian churches of Sardinia”, in The Cistercians in Sardinia. Aspects and problems of a Benedictine monastic Order in medieval Sardinia, edited by G. Spiga, Nuoro, Provincial Administration of Nuoro, 1990, pp. 250-254; G. Sanna, Usini.
Historical-descriptive reconstruction of a village in the Logudoro, Ozieri, 1992, p. 95, pp. 106-110;
R. Coroneo, Romanesque architecture from the mid-thousand to the early 1300s. Nuoro, Ilisso, 1993, sheet 116;
R. Coroneo, Romanesque Churches of Sardinia. Tourist-cultural itineraries, Cagliari, AV, 2005, p. 27.