Iglesias, Church of Santa Maria di Valverde

The church, located outside the city walls in a flat area near the main access roads to the city, borders the cemetery on the outskirts of Iglesias.
The Iglesiente church of Our Lady of Valverde is characterized by its beautiful façade in warm tones.
Due to lack of documentation, the date of construction can be deduced from the construction characteristics, which fixed the structure at the end of the 13th century.
The thirteenth-century church was affected by an important reconstruction in 1592, with the construction of pointed diaphragm arches to support the wooden roof of the classroom and the star-vaulted roof of the presbytery. The volcanic stone façade and some sections of the side walls remain of the original structure, built instead of bricks and finished with stone arches.
The building has a single-nave floor plan with a large square presbytery and chapels on the right and is covered by a wooden roof. The internal space is divided into spans by four pointed diaphragm arches. Noteworthy are the star-studded vault of the presbytery, with hanging gems, and that of the first chapel on the right, with small vaulted vaults. In the interior walls, at a lower level than the current roof, you can see the shelves on which the ancient wooden roof was set, sculpted with various decorative motifs.
Conservative and reconstructive interventions have followed one another on the façade. It is very slender vertically, bordered by a plinth and corner pillows and divided into three orders by horizontal frames.
The first order is smooth and houses the portal with the drain arc folded over by a molded eyebrow and set on peducci decorated with an animal head and with plant elements. Above the lintel, in the center, a concave contains a bas-relief decoration with a cross in a semicircular arch.
The second order is equally smooth and, in line with the portal, houses a biphora with three-lobed sharp arc lights separated by a thin column, inserted in the field of a large sharp trumped arch containing also two four-lobed rose windows of different sizes.
The third order houses the pediment decorated with three-lobed arches resting on pilasters, which follow the inclination of the roof slopes. The façade ends with a stone cross.

History of studies
The church has been the subject of studies especially in the 20th century. Dionigi Scano, Raffaele Delogu, Renata Serra, Roberto Coroneo, Francesca Segni Pulvirenti and Aldo Sari outlined their construction events in the historical, artistic and cultural context to which they belong.

Bibliography
V. Angius, entry “Iglesias”, in Historical and Statistical-Commercial Geographical Dictionary of the States of His Excellency the King of Sardinia, VIII, Turin, G. Maspero, 1841, p. 442;
D. Scano, History of art in Sardinia from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, Cagliari-Sassari, Montorsi, 1907, p. 244-245;
R. Delogu, The Architecture of the Middle Ages in Sardinia, Rome, The State Library, 1953, pp. 218-219; R. Coroneo, Romanesque architecture from the middle of the thousand to the early '300, Gold, Ilisso, 1993,
sheet 158;
F. Segni Pulvirenti - A. Sari, Late Gothic and Renaissance-influenced architecture. Nuoro, Ilisso, 1994, sheet 50;
Diocese of Iglesias, edited by G. Murtas, series “Churches and Sacred Art in Sardinia”, Sestu, Zonza, 1999, pp. 137-139; R. Coroneo, Romanesque Churches of Sardinia. Cultural tourist itineraries, Cagliari, AV, 2005, p. 105.