Cagliari, Church of San Giacomo

The church of San Giacomo stands with its bell tower in the historic district of Villanova, of which it is a parish church, accompanied by the speakers of the Souls and the Crucifix. The neighborhood was formed at the foot of Castello, after the latter became, in the 13th century, the seat of city power.
The church of San Giacomo qualifies as one of the most suggestive and collected urban spaces in the historic center of Cagliari. The first documentary mention dates back to 1346 and is contained in the Ordinations of the Cagliari Castle Councilors.
The church, a parish church in the Villanova district, was completed by the 15th century and established itself as one of the first models of Gothic-Catalan architecture in Sardinia, replicated at the beginning of the 16th century in the numerous Campidanese parishes that present the same solution as the bell tower placed side by side and aligned with the façade, originally square and crenellated.
The bell tower has an epigraph that transmits the chronology of the factory, between 1442 and 1448. The Gothic-Catalan façade was replaced by the current one, with purist neoclassical forms, built in the 19th century on a design by Gaetano Cima.
The room measures about 30 m. In the only large nave there are five chapels on each side, added to the original layout. The presbyterial area consists of a main chapel, with a starry vault and hanging gems, flanked by two chapels.
On the façade, four sturdy neoclassical columns, with smooth stems and Corinthian-style capitals, support a large tympanum that extends over the entire pediment.
The original square-barreled bell tower rises about 30 m high against the front façade and set on the first chapel-shaped chapel. At the top, pointed windows open on all four sides.

History of Studies
Michele Pinna (1929) reports the first mention of the church in an archival document from 1346. Previously, Tommaso Casini (1905) and later Renata Serra (1984) and Giancarlo Sorgia (1993) highlight the importance of the epigraph that shows the date of construction of the bell tower, between the years 1442 and 1448. Over time, the building underwent multiple changes, so dating is problematic. Francesca Segni Pulvirenti (1994) recognizes the constructive characteristics of the 15th century in the bell tower, while the façade designed by Gaetano Cima, as Salvatore Naitza (1992) writes, has “lines of purist classicism”. Maria Cristina Cannas (1994) identified Gothic-Catalan characters especially inside, in the dotted vaults of the chapels and in the starry vault of the presbytery.

Bibliography by
T. Casini, “The Sardinian inscriptions of the Middle Ages”, in Archivio Storico Sardo, I, 1905, pp. 302-380; M. Pinna, “Memories and documents.
The Ordinations of the Councilors of the Castle of Cagliari in the 14th century”, in Archivio Storico Sardo, XVII, 1929, pp. 64-65;
C. Maltese, “Distrust for classical forms”, in Tuttitalia. Sardinia, Florence, 1963, p. 114;
G. Olla Repetto, “Sardinian notaries of the 15th century: Pietro Baster”, in Historical and Legal Studies in Honor of Antonio Era, Padua, 1963, pp. 282-284;
R. Serra, “The parishes of Assemini, Sestu and Settimo S. Pietro. Notes for a history of late Gothic architecture in Sardinia”, in Proceedings of the XIII Congress on the History of Architecture. Sardinia, I, Rome, 1966, pp. 228-230;
R. Serra, “Sardinian-Catalan architecture”, in The Catalans in Sardinia, edited by J. Carbonell-F. Manconi, Cinisello Balsamo, Silvana, 1984, pp. 134;
Maria Cristina Cannas, “The parish church of San Giacomo di Villanova in Cagliari. Construction events from the 15th to the 17th century”, in Pre-Proceedings of the XIV Congress on the History of the Crown of Aragon, Sassari, 1994, pp. 93-113;
F. Segni Pulvirenti - A. Sari, Late Gothic Architecture with Renaissance Influence. Nuoro, Ilisso, 1994, sheet 8.