Iglesias, Church of San Francesco

The building is located in S/O, within the perimeter of the medieval historic center, a short distance from the cathedral.
San Francesco di Iglesias represents one of the most intact, fascinating and significant Gothic-Catalan architecture in Sardinia.
The construction period is not known documentarily. J.R. Webster recently argued that the Franciscans arrived in Iglesias as early as 1230 and that it was James II of Aragon who authorized the refoundation of the structure by the Catalan Franciscans after 1324. The current building dates back to the 16th century. The subsequent expansions and interventions have maintained the forms typical of the Gothic-Catalan style.
The church, made of sedimentary and volcanic stone, has a single-aisle plan punctuated by bays with pointed diaphragm arches set on pillars, which support the exposed wooden roof. The square-shaped presbytery is raised and covered by a starry vault concluded by a pendulous gem, set on decorated floors.
The presbyterial arch has the same structure as the access arches to the side chapels, with some variation: the size and width of the threshold and the arc ring in alternating light and dark ashlars. Seven raised chapels open on each side and have cross vaults dotted with variously decorated pendulous gems, as well as the jamb capitals of the entrance arches and the tax walls of the vaults. From the first chapel in D. you can reach a masonry choir.
The façade is completely smooth, except for the presence of two oculi and a rosette in line with the portal. The latter consists of jambs in bundles of columns and monolithic lintels on decorated shelves. On the lintel there is an eyebrow exhaust arc molded in beams that recall the pattern of the jambs.
Inside the church, among other elements of liturgical furniture, the Retablo di San Francesco, a polyptych from about 1560, painted in tempera on board in the Cagliari workshops of Stampace, deserves mention.

History of studies

Church studies intensified in the 20th century. Dionigi Scano, Carlo Aru, Costantino M. Devilla, Corrado Maltese, Renata Serra, Aldo Sari and Francesca Segni Pulvirenti described their architectural and artistic events framing them in the history of the city.

Bibliography
D. Scano, History of Art in Sardinia from the Eleventh to the Fourteenth Century, Cagliari-Sassari, Montorsi, 1907, p. 421;
C. Aru, “The Church of San Francesco d'Iglesias”, in Fontana Viva, III, fasc. 1, January 1928, pp. 8-11;
C. Maltese, Art in Sardinia from V to XVIII, Rome, De Luca, 1962, p. 20;
R. Serra, “Sardinian-Catalan architecture”, in The Catalans in Sardinia, edited by J. Carbonell-F. Manconi, Cinisello Balsamo, Silvana, 1984, p. 141;
M. Tangheroni, The City of Silver, Naples, Liguori, 1985, pp. 123-154;
A. Sari, “Franciscan Architecture, Contribution to the History of Art in Sardinia”, in Sardinian Historical Archive of Sassari, XII, 1986, pp. 262-264;
J.R. Webster, “The early Catalan mendicants in Sardinia”, in the Sardinian Franciscan Library, II, 1-2, 1988, pp. 11-12; F. Segni Pulvirenti - A. Sari, Late Gothic architecture with a Renaissance influence. Nuoro, Ilisso, 1994, sheet 34