Cagliari, Church of Sant'Antonio Abate

The church of Sant'Antonio Abate is embedded in the fabric of buildings that overlook Via Manno, a lively commercial artery in the historic city center. Next to it is the porch of Sant'Antonio, which connects the street with the underlying square in front of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
The church was built in the first half of the 18th century, probably in place of the one built together with other buildings in the Sant'Antonio hospital complex, including in addition to the church and the hospital, also a convent, home of the Augustinian Fathers, who managed these structures since the fourteenth century.
In 1638, the administration passed to the Order of the Hospitallers of Saint John of God, who were responsible both for the renovation and expansion of the hospital and the convent, and for the construction of the new church, consecrated in 1723, as evidenced by a plaque placed on the left wall of the atrium. However, the presence of a painting depicting the Salvator Mundi, signed and dated 1721 by the painter Giacomo Altomonte, suggests that the church had been more or less completed already on that date. When the Civil Hospital, built by the architect Gaetano Cima, was ready in 1850, the one in Sant'Antonio was discharged and, together with the convent sold to private individuals, while the church passed from the property of the Augustinian Fathers to that of the Archconfraternity of Our Lady of Itria.
On the church, with an octagonal plan, a drum is placed on which rises a dome in segments culminating in a lantern. The main body includes the entrance atrium, six rectangular side chapels vaulted in a barrel; the presbytery, with a similar plan and type of roof, but deeper than the chapels. The façade is moved by the protrusions and recesses of the late Baroque portal, connected, by means of volutes, to the niche above with the simulacrum of Sant'Antonio. The coat of arms of the Hospitallers of Saint John is placed on the lintel.

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, A. Timon, 1861;
B. Virdis, “Reliefs of three Sardinian churches: S. Giovanni di Assemini, S. Antonio Abate, S. Lorenzo in Cagliari”, in Palladio, 1-4, January-December 1962;
V. Mossa, From Gothic to Baroque in Sardinia, Sassari, Carlo Delfino, 1982; S. Naitza, Architecture from the late 17th century to purist classicism.
Nuoro, Ilisso, 1992, sheet 12.