Cagliari, Crypt of Santa Restituta

The hypogeum, partly a natural cave, partly carved into the rock, is located under the church of Santa Restituta in the historic district of Stampace.
Archaeological research has shown that in the late Punic age, the hypogeum was a quarry of limestone blocks. Later, as would appear from the discovery of votive objects on site, it would become a place of worship. The hypogeum was then reused as a warehouse for amphorae until the first century AD; then it was abandoned for twelve centuries, when it was used again as a place of worship. In 1263, the archbishop of Pisa, Federico Visconti, visited Cagliari. Another moment of abandonment followed, caused by the greater attendance of the nearby new churches of Sant'Anna and San Francesco. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the material that had filled it was rediscovered and emptied.
The hypogeum consists of a large central environment connected to the outside by two staircases dug into the rock. The walls were decorated with paintings, of which only that of Saint John the Baptist, dated to the 13th century, is preserved. The marble statue of Santa Restituta is placed on the main altar, while the simulacra of Saints Justina and Enedina was in the lower altar.
The statues guided the search for relics, which was crowned with success in 1614, when the lower altar was destroyed to find the sacred remains. Later, the then bishop of Cagliari, Francisco Desquivel, ordered embellishment work with the raising of the altar and the creation of three niches: the central one housed the relics of the four Saints and the statue of Restituta; the side ones probably housed the simulacra of Eusebio, bishop of Vercelli, and Eusebia abbess, traditionally considered children of Saint Restituta. In 1620, after the discovery, under the floor of the crypt, of other presumed holy bodies, the room was further decorated by adding the large altar of the chapel in the background, delimited by a large arch adorned with fioroni and diamond tips.
During the Second World War, the hypogeum was reused by Cagliari as a refuge to escape the bombing. The relics of Santa Restituta were hidden in the church of Sant'Anna to protect them from bombing. Memory of them was lost and they were recently found in 1997 by Mauro Dadea in a disbanded environment, inside a seventeenth-century wooden urn covered with cloth and bearing a cartouche that identifies them as relics of Saint Restituta.

History of excavations
The first investigations were conducted in the seventeenth century in search of relics. At the end of the seventies of the last century, the Superintendence for Archaeological Heritage for the provinces of Cagliari and Oristano promoted a campaign to excavate and restore the crypt.

Bibliography
G. Spano, Guide to the City and Surrounding Areas of Cagliari, Cagliari, A. Timon, 1861, pp. 137-139;
A. Saiu Deidda, “Documents and news about the underground church of Santa Restituta in Cagliari”, in the Sardinian Historical Archive, XXXIV, 1983, pp. 126-141; Domus et Carcer Sanctae Restitutae.
History of a rock sanctuary in Cagliari, Cagliari, 1988;
M. Dadea, “The inscriptions of the crypt of Santa Restituta in Cagliari (excavations 1607-1614)”, in Early Christian Sardinia between Eusebio and Gregory the Great. Proceedings of the National Study Conference, Cagliari, pp. 81-136;
M. Dadea, “The Crypt of Saint Restituta”, in Cagliari: urban itineraries between archeology and art, Cagliari, 1999, pp. 46-49;
A.M. Colavitti, Cagliari, series “Ancient Cities in Italy”, Rome, 2003, p. 48.