Bonarcado, Church of Santa Maria

The latest restorations have highlighted a Nuragic settlement in the area where the sanctuary of Santa Maria is located, with a Roman village superimposed on it. The sanctuary was built on a late Roman thermal building. The toponym Bonarcado derives from the church dedicated to the Virgin Panakhrantos and dates back to Byzantine times. The parish church of Santa Maria, on the other hand, was built in the Judicial Age as a Camaldolese church.
The church of Santa Maria di Bonarcado is of the greatest importance in Romanesque architecture in Sardinia, not only because of its dimensions (m 31 x 14, high about m 9), but above all because of the historical circumstances that are linked to its construction. The oldest map of the “Condaghe di Santa Maria di Bonarcado” informs of the foundation, around 1110 by the will of the Arborese judge Costantino I de Lacon-Gunale, of a Camaldolese monastery affiliated with the Pisan abbey of San Zeno and richly endowed with churches, lands, men and livestock. Another card commemorates the consecration of the “new church” of Santa Maria, which took place in 1146/47. The church measured 30 m and had a “commission” cross plan; the current first order of the bell tower was the S arm of the transept, while the N arm has disappeared, as has the original apse.
An inscription in the parasta on the west corner of the prospectus dates the beginning of the enlargement to 1242, which was completed with its consecration in 1268. The apse was demolished and in its place a room with three covered wooden naves was built, concluded by a new apse, closer to the early medieval sanctuary. Due to the two building phases, the church today has a longitudinal plan of about 50 m. The first phase includes the façade and the hall, with a length of just under 20 m; to the second, the remaining part, up to the apse. The sober façade is characterized by high round arches, which produce a strong vertical momentum, lightening the impressive mass of dark basalt. Major concessions to the decorative element can be seen in the apse façade, where folding pilasters divide the surfaces. The terminals are decorated with lobed arches on elongated legs.

History of studies
The church has been analyzed since the beginning of the 20th century by Dionigi Scano. In the second half of the century, Raffaello Delogu's study and the insights of Renata Serra and Roberto Coroneo took place. Additional contributions have come from archaeological research in the context of restorations.

Bibliography
D. Scano, Storia dell'arte in Sardegna dal XI al XIV secolo, Cagliari-Sassari, Montorsi, 1907, pp. 136-139;
R. Delogu, L'architettura del Medioevo in Sardegna, Roma, La Libreria dello Stato, 1953, pp. 127-129;
R. Serra, La Sardegna, collana "Italia romanica", Milano, Jaca Book, 1989, pp. 158-162;
D. Salvi, "Bonarcado (Oristano). Prime considerazioni sullo scavo del convento di San Zenone", in Bollettino di archeologia, 16-18, 1992, pp. 249-254;
R. Coroneo, Architettura romanica dalla metà del Mille al primo '300, Nuoro, Ilisso, 1993, scheda 21;
D. Salvi, "(OR) Bonarcado, santuario di S. Maria di Bonaccattu. 1995", in Archeologia Medievale, XXII, 1995, pp. 395-396;
P.G. Spanu, La Sardegna bizantina tra VI e VII secolo, Oristano, S'Alvure, 1998, pp. 135-137;
R. Coroneo-R. Serra, Sardegna preromanica e romanica, collana "Patrimonio artistico italiano", Milano, Jaca Book, 2004, pp. 139-147;
R. Coroneo, Chiese romaniche della Sardegna. Itinerari turistico-culturali, Cagliari, AV, 2005, pp. 70-71.