Bosa, Church of Our Lady of sos Regnos Altos

Bosa, affreschi della Chiesa di Nostra Signora de sos Regnos Altos. Foto di Elisabetta Loi, da Sardegna DL

The town of Bosa stretches along the banks of the Temo river, climbing with houses along the slope of the hill at the top of which the castle of Serravalle was built, 81 m above sea level. Commonly called the Malaspina castle, it owes this appellation to the tradition that it was built in 1112 by the homonymous family of Tuscan nobles transplanted to the island in the mid-eleventh century. The church of Our Lady of Sos Regnos Altos, built within the walls of the castle, served as a palatine chapel.
More than from an architectural point of view, the church of Our Lady of SOS Regnos Altos arouses interest in the extraordinary cycle of fourteenth-century frescoes that emerged inside it.
The chronology of the chapel is uncertain: it has not yet been possible to determine if it was built before the castle and then restored or if it was subsequent to the fortified structure.
In the cadastral records, the first title of the church was to Sant'Andrea Apostolo and only around the end of the 19th century did it take on its current name.
There is no mention of the original structure of the building, which has undergone heavy interventions over the centuries; today it looks like a single-room church, where the presbyterial area has been completely rebuilt. However, the most recent studies have proposed dating the building to the 12th century and a series of subsequent interventions during the 14th century.
Among these interventions there is also the creation of the cycle of frescoes that can be admired in three of the four walls of the church. These are located on the counterfaçade and on the two long sides and have been heavily mutilated by the reconstruction of the apse, during an undocumented period. Even the dating of the frescoes, like the church, has created many problems for scholars, who even placed them in the 15th century; today it is believed that these were made in the 14th century, presumably by a painter of Tuscan origin.

History of studies
Studies on the Bosan church are intertwined with those concerning the castle. On his chapel and in particular on the frescoes that decorate the interior, the studies of Attilio Mastino (1991), Gianni Fois (1996) and Corrado Zedda (1996) stand out. In 1999, an in-depth monograph by Fernanda Poli was published.

Bibliography
R. Carta Raspi, Castelli medioevali di Sardegna, Cagliari, Fondazione Il Nuraghe, 1933, pp.115-121;
F. Fois, Castelli della Sardegna medioevale, a cura di B. Fois, Cinisello Balsamo, Amilcare Pizzi, 1992, pp. 285-292;
R. Sfogliano, "Il ciclo di affreschi tardo-medioevale", in Il castello di Bosa a cura di S. Spanu, Torino, Spanu & C., 1981, pp. 69-79;
R. Serra, Pittura e scultura dall'età romanica alla fine del '500, collana "Storia dell'arte in Sardegna", Nuoro, Ilisso, 1990, sch. 27;
A. Mastino, Bosa in età giudicale. Nota sugli affreschi del castello di Serravalle, Sassari, Gallizzi, 1991;
G. Fois, Nostra Signora di Regnos Altos: fede, storia e leggenda, Bosa, Tipografia S. Giuseppe, 1996;
C. Zedda, "Gli Arborea e gli affreschi della chiesa di Nostra Signora di Sos Regnos Altos a Bosa", in Archivio storico e giuridico sardo di Sassari, 3, 1996, pp. 135-165;
F. Poli, La chiesa del castello di Bosa: gli affreschi di Nostra Signora de Sos Regnos Altos, Sassari, Edes, 1999;
R. Coroneo, Chiese romaniche della Sardegna. Itinerari turistico-culturali, Cagliari, AV, 2005, p. 58.