Cagliari, Church of Sant'Efisio

Located in the upper part of the Stampace district, the church is located in an opening of the homonymous street.
The church of the patron saint of Sardinia stands on an ancient factory, according to tradition the place where he was imprisoned, which should date back to around 430 AD. The building was expanded and modified in 1538, when it was entrusted to the newly founded Brotherhood of Sant'Efisio, and then in the 18th century, when the Oratory was built, consecrated in 1726, as evidenced by a walled plaque on the wall of a side entrance to this room. According to Cabras and Naitza, the Oratory, covered from a barrel vault, was built by the Piedmontese architect Antonio Felice De Vincenti, who in the same years was engaged in the renovation of the former Jesuit College of Santa Croce in Cagliari. At the end of the 18th century, there were new interventions that gave the church its current appearance, typical of the Piedmontese architectural production of the eighteenth century.
The building has a single nave covered by a barrel vault, on which there are side chapels, and a raised presbytery. The room is punctuated by classic-style decorative elements, such as pilasters and entablatures, while square windows are placed at the ceiling tax, which, with those of the octagonal drum of the dome that rises above the presbytery, give light to the interior. The simple façade, marked by three orders of Ionic pilasters, has the portal in the center, framed by a frame and surmounted by a curvilinear tympanum, which corresponds, in the higher order, to the window of the choir. The end of the “carabiniere's hat” façade is an element present in other Sardinian churches as early as the 16th century, but here enriched by scrolls and other decorations typical of the Piedmontese architectural style of the 18th century. The square-barreled bell tower dates back to the 16th century renovation of the building.

Bibliography
G. Spano, Guide to the city and surroundings of Cagliari, Cagliari, A. Timon, 1861;
A. Taramelli, “The underground church called the prison of S. Efisio”, in New Bulletin of Christian Archaeology, XXVII, 1921;
R. Salinas, “The evolution of architecture in Sardinia in the seventeenth century”, in Sardinian Studies, XVI, 1958-59;
M. Cabras, “The works of De Vincenti and the first Piedmontese military engineers in Sardinia in the period 1720-45", in Proceedings of the XIII Congress on the History of Architecture. Sardinia, Rome, 1966;
R. Salinas, “The development of architecture in Sardinia from Gothic to Baroque”, in Proceedings of the XIII Congress on the History of Architecture. Sardinia, Rome, 1966;
S. Naitza, Architecture from the late 17th century to purist classicism, series “History of art in Sardinia”, Nuoro, Ilisso, 1992.