Macomer, Church of San Pantaleo

The historic center of the town is located on the basaltic edge of a small plateau, on the edge of the valley of S'Adde, in the Marghine region.
At the current state of studies, there is no news about the forms and period of construction of the first plant of the parish church of San Pantaleo. The current appearance is the result of a series of changes and extensions that the church underwent starting from the last third of the sixteenth century.
The first document dates back to the month of March 1573, when the “picapedrer” Migueli Puig (originally from Cagliari, resident in Bolotana and active in some centers of the Marghine) was commissioned to raise the bell tower with the addition of an order and a spire. Subsequent news, dating back to 1607, informs of the rebuilding - by the Sassari “picapedrers” Miali Fosedda, Nicola Dectori and Elias Vinci - of the façade, further modified in 1714; while another document from the same year 1714 refers to generic works to complete the architectural structures, entrusted to the Sassari “brañiles” Quirico de Solis and Iayme Sua. Other chronological indications can be deduced from the inscriptions engraved or carved in the architectural elements of the building, such as the date of 1584, in the right capital of the entrance arch of the chapel of Saint John the Baptist, and the date of 1635, in the barrel vault of the central aisle.
The building has a mix of late Gothic and Renaissance stylistic features in its structural and decorative elements, a feature that was very common in Sardinia from the second half of the sixteenth century to the following century. The three-aisle system, divided by arches set on cruciform pillars and divided into four bays, is derived from the church of San Francesco and the cathedral of Alghero; the roof system, also traced back to the Alghero cathedral, consists of a lunetted barrel vault punctuated by burrows in the central aisle, and sometimes a cross in the side aisles. Even the rectangular-shaped presbytery, communicating with three rooms used as a sacristy and with the access compartment to the bell tower, has turned to a barrel; the chapels, four on each side, were built at different times, between the end of the 16th and 18th centuries.
The bell tower, with a square barrel, is divided into four orders separated by a marcapian frame, with arched single-light windows in the last, and is concluded by a crenellated parapet with four corner pinnacles, adorned with bullfighting masks and protomes at the base and by spheres on top, and by a pyramidal spire adorned with cats. The façade, divided into three mirrors by four pilasters (in beautiful red vulcanite ashlars) on a molded base, is divided into two orders by a continuous molded frame. At the center of the lower order is the large portal, framed by grooved and rusted pilasters and an entablature enriched with carvings; the pilasters are flanked by rudented columns with a composite capital and a drawstring collar, on a high plinth adorned with a flower, on which the triangular tympanum with a plaque that is now illegible is set; in the side mirrors there are two simple rectangular windows. The upper order, with a window centred in line with the portal, is concluded by a curvilinear nuisance. Above the pilasters, four candlestick acroters rise, surmounted by a central tower and a sphere on the sides.

History of studies
The church is the subject of a brief summary in the volume by Francesca Segni Pulvirenti and Aldo Sari on late Gothic and Renaissance architecture (1994).

Bibliography by
R. Salinas, “The Evolution of Architecture in Sardinia in the Seventeenth Century”, in Studi Sardi, XVI, 1958-1959, pp. 400-428;
C. Maltese, “The Architecture of the Sixteenth Century in Sardinia and the Artistic Policy of Philip II”, in Proceedings of the XIII Congress on the History of Architecture. Sardegna, I, Rome, Center for Studies for the History of Architecture, 1966, pp. 271-277;
V. Mossa, Nature and Civilization in Sardinia. Guide in 100 cards to environmental and cultural heritage, Sassari, Chiarella, 1979;
V. Mossa, From Gothic to Baroque in Sardinia, Sassari, Carlo Delfino, 1982;
G. Kalby Pitzolu, Macopsisa/Macomer: Five Thousand Years of History, Salerno-Rome, Ripostes, 1990; F. Segni Pulvirenti - A. Sari, Late Gothic and Renaissance Architecture. Nuoro, Ilisso, 1994, sheet 45.