Fonni, Sanctuary of the Virgin of the Martyrs

To reach the sanctuary, you must proceed along the main road and arrive in Piazza Martiri where the architectural complex of the Observant Minors overlooks, which includes the convent, the basilica and the oratory of San Michele, all overlooking a large square delimited by “cumbessias”.
On April 14, 1610, the Franciscan Father Giorgio d'Acillara took possession of the place where the church and convent should have been built. The site, donated by Don Stefano Melis from Fonnese, was located in the Logotza district of the “villa” of Fonni belonging to the fief of Mandas. On the façade of the church, the family's noble coat of arms is still clearly visible today, above the main portal: an apple tree full of fruits.
The convent and church, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, were completed after multiple interruptions around 1632-33. The plan of the church was very simple: a single-vaulted room, turned in a barrel, with three chapels on each side and the raised presbytery where the painting by Antonio Todde depicting the Trinity is located. Attached was the convent with its classic Franciscan structure: a quadrangle of cells overlooking the cloister, where the central well is located.
In 1702, after the demolition of the Rosary chapel, on the initiative of Father Pacifico Guiso Pirella of Nuoro (1675-1735), the construction of the new body dedicated to the Virgin of the Martyrs began, which was embedded in the one dedicated to the Trinity. Father Guiso's project, including the upper church and an underground sanctuary (the crypt), was created by the Milanese architect and foreman Giuseppe Quallio and some of his countrymen: Giovanni Battista Corbellini, Ambrogio Mutoni and Giovan Battista Reti. The work was finished in October 1706.
The chapel-basilica consists of a central covered aisle with a barrel vault, which is overlooked by two semicircular chapels. The structure is completed by the raised presbytery that houses the altar of Our Lady of the Martyrs. At the intersection with the chapels, the octagonal dome insists on a tall windowed drum. The sumptuous sculptural decoration of the basilica is enriched by paintings by Pietro Antonio and Gregorio Are (father and son).
The underground sanctuary dedicated to Sant'Efisio and San Gregorio Magno, considered the Barbarican Fathers of the Faith, is structured in two rooms that were originally separated by a railing: the vestibule and the sanctuary. In the first, with a rectangular plan with a barrel roof, five niches on each side house busts of saints linked to the Franciscan tradition. In the second room, always with a rectangular plan and turned into a barrel, there are numerous altars and simulacra in polychrome stucco made by Mutoni and Corbellino. The tempering in the vault was carried out by the Are.
The oratory of San Michele Arcangelo was built between 1758-1759 on Lombard models imported by Quallio and his collaborators. The dome of the building is decorated with tempera by Gregorio Are. Inside the convent there is a precious collection of 17th and 18th century paintings, executed by artists who worked on the Franciscan shipyard: Antonio Todde, Giuseppe Lopez and Pietro Antonio Are.

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

Bibliography
Dalla parte di Fonni, edited by D. Pili, Cagliari, 1990;
S. Naitza, Architecture from the Late 17th Century to Puristic Classicism, series “History of Art in Sardinia”, Nuoro, Ilisso, 1992, sch. 6; G. Zirottu, Fonni, Nuoro, 2002.