The church of San Michele and the annexed novitiate (now Military Hospital) are located between Via Ospedale and Via Azuni, the main arteries of the historic district of Stampace.
The church was erected between 1664 and 1712. Work followed on the construction of the sacristy after 1720. The consecration dates back to 1738. The planimetric diagram has the characteristics typical of Jesuit systems.
With a central plan and a single room, on an expanded octagon shaped like a cross on opposite sides, it has six intercommunicating radial chapels, three on each side (according to the reference to the Trinitarian dogma) turned barrel-vaulted, of which the central one is larger and deeper. On the main axis, after crossing the entrance, there is an atrium lined with two chapels, which is opposed by the presbyterial chapel. This planimetric solution makes it possible to achieve the objective of joining the central plan with the longitudinal one, without merging them. The walls are punctuated by grooved Corinthian piles, adorned with a frieze of leaves and human figures, surmounted by a frame that runs around the entire perimeter. The pavilion dome rests on an octagonal drum on which four windows open, alternating with blind octagons. Covered with scaled tiles, it has pilasters at the outer edges and is surmounted by a lantern.
The façade of the entire complex, in clay tuff, is composed of three orders that together reproduce a pattern typical of seventeenth-century wooden altars, which recalls the methods of provincial Hispanic Baroque. The first order consists of three arches that lead into a cross-vaulted porch, from which you can access the novitiate and the church, whose beautiful arched portal is surmounted by double-inflected volutes with the coat of arms of the Society of Jesus.
The arches are framed between four grooved columns, on plinths decorated on the front and sides. The entablature, with a very projecting frame, underlines the second order, tripartite like the previous one with grooved Corinthian columns, which divide the surface into three squares in which a window with a broken tympanum is inserted. On the axis, three coats of arms can be recognized: the central one of the Company, that of D. of Bishop Sanna, while that of S. could instead belong to the donor Francesco Angelo Dessì, whose testamentary bequest allowed the completion of the church and the creation of the precious furniture of the sacristy, as well as his funeral monument in polychrome marble on the south side of the presbytery. The third order, surmounted by a triangular tympanum, has a niche containing the eighteenth-century marble statue of Saint Michael the Archangel. In 1773, the Society of Jesus was suppressed.
In 1822, the decree re-establishing the Order in Sardinia was made public and in 1835 the Novitiate of San Michele reopened. The Jesuits were again expelled from Sardinia in 1848 by royal decree. From this date, the Novitiate premises will host the Military Hospital, while only in August 1928 will the Society of Jesus be able to return to its church.
The restoration of the church directed by engineer Dionigi Scano starting in 1892 was completed in 1893. Other restorations will follow after World War II.

History of studies
The church is the subject of a brief fact sheet in Salvatore Naitza's volume on late-seventeenth-century and purist architecture (1992).

Bibliography
G. Spano, Guide to the city and surroundings of Cagliari, Cagliari, Timon, 1861;
B. Virdis, “San Michele di Stampace in Cagliari. The church with the crooked columns”, in Palladio. Journal of the History of Architecture, II-III, April-September 1957;
C. Maltese, Art in Sardinia from the 5th to the 18th century, Rome, De Luca, 1962; C. Maltese-R. Serra, “Episodes of an anti-classical civilization”, in Sardinia, Venice [1969];
M. Cabras, “San Michele di Stampace in Cagliari”, in economic Sardinia, August 8, 1975;
A. Piseddu, “The triumph of the baroque. The church of San Michele”, in Almanacco di Cagliari, 1979, without pages; 17th and 18th century
art and culture in Sardinia. Proceedings of the national conference, Naples, Italian Scientific Editions, 1984;
S. Naitza, Architecture from the late 17th century to purist classicism. Nuoro, Ilisso, 1992, sheet 2; Educational notebook no. 5 of the Superintendence of the BAAAS for the provinces of Cagliari and Oristano: the Church of San Michele, Cagliari, 1992; T. Kirova-D. Fiorino, The religious architecture of the Baroque in Sardinia, Cagliari, Aipsa, 2002.