At the time of its export to Sardinia, the scheme of the Hispanic Gothic polyptych ('retaule', with a Catalan term; 'retablo', Castilian) must have already taken on a stable form, now proven for the function assigned to it. Based on what is learned from the written documentation and through the testimony in the paintings themselves, it is believed that the altarpiece was introduced in two versions, perhaps separated by size.

Built with the structure of the double triptych on an odd-numbered square predella, it had the frame of polvaroli sloping or with a central cusp in the small blades. For the major polyptychs, the pattern that becomes canonical has a flat end, with the diagonal frame of the polvarolo stretched horizontally on the central compartment (“pessa mitjana”) that significantly dominates the sides (“pessa foranas”, “de ma esquerra” those on the left, “de ma dreta” those on the right), along whose outer edges the polvaroli (“guardapols”) follow a broken line, interrupted at a certain distance from the predella (“peu”).

A double triptych structure and canonically Gothic-Catalan iconographies can be deduced from the surviving fragments of the “Altarpiece of the Annunciation” (about 1406), from Saint Francis of Stampace, of which the National Art Gallery of Cagliari houses the predel and three plates, ascribed to the Catalan Joan Mates, a work probably painted in Barcelona and exported to the island.

In 1455, with the “San Bernardino Altarpiece” already in San Francesco di Stampace and now in the Cagliari Art Gallery, it is certain that the island's client has now passed from the importation of works entirely produced in Catalonia, to the demand for painters who moved to Sardinia and worked in local workshops.

Starting from this cornerstone, the picture of island painting of the second fifteenth century appears increasingly rich and varied, thanks to the quantity and quality of the works received, whole or fragmentary, and thanks to the range of cultural references, which they unfold with a wide opening between the Italian pole (especially Naples) and the Iberian pole (Barcelona and Valencia), through which vivid reflections of the Flemish vision arrived.

Emblematic, in this sense, is the position of the Master of Castelsardo, unmistakable in the ways that characterize the works of substantial autography. All revolve around a single certain date, 1500, the year in which it appears, from an act of June 6, that the spouses Giovanni and Iolanda of Santa Cruz, lords of the place, accessed a perpetual annual census in favor of the Cagliari notary Nicolò Gessa, to pay for the altarpiece painted for their church in Tuili. This is the “Altarpiece of Saint Peter”, the largest of the two preserved in the parish church of Tuili, a work of capital importance for focusing on the cultural elements circulating in Sardinia at the end of the fifteenth century and the opening of the new century.

This is the moment when the so-called “Stampace School” made its debut in Cagliari, which takes its name from the Cagliari district where the Cavaro family kept a shop for several generations. The oldest of Stampace's painters is Pietro Cavaro. The archival information, which has been possible to find on him, ranges from 1508 to 1538. On January 2, 1508, Pietro Cavaro was among the members of the Barcelona painters' guild; we deduce that he must have been in Catalonia for at least a decade and certainly quite appreciated, if he enjoyed this position.

Compared to his times, Pietro Cavaro is a lucky painter in various aspects, perhaps the only Sardinian to have had the opportunity to shape his personality in an environment like that of Barcelona, where he was able to enjoy fruitful stimuli, because they were articulated in the most diverse directions, from the Flemish to the Italian one. He was able to use this circumstance to obtain an opening that would bear fruit in Sardinia for another century, with a horizon of 180 degrees from Barcelona to Naples.

The first work (among those that have come down to us) is the “Altarpiece of the Virgin” for the main altar of the parish church of Saint John the Baptist in Villamar, which bears the coats of arms of the Aymerich client and the inscription with the date 1518 and the painter's signature: “pinsit hoc retabolum Petri Cavaro pictorum minimus Stampacis”.
At the date of Villamar's altarpiece, the most complex and most complete of those that are preserved by him, Pietro Cavaro had therefore gained not only the most important experiences of the Barcelona environment, but also assimilated fundamental elements of the Neapolitan artistic situation, which led to the abandonment of late Gothic modes and the adherence to those of Italian Renaissance painting. After the death of Pietro Cavaro (1537), his son Michele continued his flourishing workshop with evident Raphaellesque footage, while Antioco Mainas disseminated more popular works.

Even for manneristic painting, we have valuable pictorial testimonies, in particular the works of the interesting but still mysterious Master of Ozieri, who has a workshop in northern Sardinia (“Retablo of the Madonna of Loreto” in the cathedral of Ozieri, “of Sant'Elena” in the parish church of Benetutti, “Holy Family” in the Pinacoteca di Ploaghe).

Between the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the following century, the Neapolitan painters Bartolomeo Castagnola, Giulio Adato, Ursino Bonocore and Francesco Pinna from Alghero were active in the south of the island, who worked in Cagliari (“Altarpiece of Sant'Alberto” in the church of Carmine, “of Sant'Orsola” today in the Pinacoteca), with a style open to suggestions of bells, direct or mediated by prints.