Oristano, Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta

In the historic center of Oristano, on the site of a late ancient and Byzantine settlement, there is the cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, which overlooks a square. Archaeological evidence of the Paleobizantine settlement has emerged in the church's churchyard, where 7th-century burials have been found.
According to the tradition reported by the sixteenth-century historian Giovanni Francesco Fara, in 1070 Orzocco I de Lacon-Zori transferred the capital of the Giudicato di Arborea from Tharros to Oristano. Since 1131, the “ecclesia sanctae Mariae de Orestano”, formerly a cathedral, has certainly been documented. The Romanesque structure was placed between the end of the eleventh and the beginning of the twelfth century. It is likely that it had a tri-naved plan, with the apse in S/E and the seven dividers consisting of eight columns each, since there are sixteen remaining gray marble stems. In the first thirty years of the 13th century, when Mariano II de Lacon-Gunale was judge, the church was partly rebuilt. Archbishop Torgotorio de Muru commissioned the wooden roof and doors to Maestro Placentinus, who signed the bronze woodpeckers in 1228.
Towards the middle of the 14th century, a transept was added to the trinavata hall, with four chapels that flanked, two on each side, the quadrangular presbytery. In the chapel called “del Rimedio” or of the Most Holy, Filippo Mameli's funerary inscription, dated 1348, is placed, which marks the ante quite term for the renovation according to Gothic-Italian methods.
The worrying condition of the church led to its renovation in the 18th century. Following a resolution of the Arborense Chapter, convened by Bishop Antonio Nin on May 4, 1729, work began on the demolition of the old Romanesque and Gothic structures. The work was entrusted to Salvatore Garrucciu from Cagliari, who designed, after the total demolition of the complex, a trenched plant. A second project was also presented by the Piedmontese engineer Antonio Felice De Vincenti, which included a single-aisle classroom. After a couple of years Garrucciu died and the work was entrusted to Giovanni Battista Ariety from Alghero, who followed the second project, sparing some of the structures of the Gothic transept and the so-called Archivietto, with a square plan, built between 1622 and 1626 as a presbyterial chapel, to expand the Gothic choir lengthwise. It is one of the most significant architectural structures of the second island Plateresque, in which Italian Classicism and the Gothic tradition coexist harmoniously. In 1745 the church was reconsecrated. In the nineteenth century, the two chapels were opened at the heads of the transept.
The plan is shaped like a Latin cross, with a large single barrel-vaulted nave, on which there are three chapels on each side; the apse is rectangular. At the intersection with the transept, a large octagonal drum supports the dome surmounted by a lantern.
On the outside, the building declares the various overlaps of styles, due to the different renovations. On the west side is the polygonal bell tower, placed on a high base. In 1776, following the ruin of the vault of the bell cell, the Piedmontese engineer Francesco Daristo raised the external plinth, obliterated the single-pointed windows and rebuilt the bell cell and the small “onion” dome.

History of studies
The church is the subject of brief sheets in the volumes of the series “History of Art in Sardinia” on Romanesque (1993), late Gothic and Renaissance (1994), late seventeenth-century and purist (1992) architecture.

Bibliography
V. Angius, entry “Oristano”, in G. Casalis, Historical, Statistical and Commercial Geographical Dictionary of the States by H.M. the King of Sardinia, XIII, Turin, G. Maspero, 1845;
C. Maltese, Art in Sardinia from V to XVIII, Rome, De Luca, 1962;
R. Bonu, Oristano in the Duomo and its churches, Cagliari, Fossataro, 1973; S. Naitza, Architecture from the late 17th century to purist classicism.
Nuoro, Ilisso, 1992, cards 14, 25, 72;
R. Coroneo, Romanesque Architecture from the Mid Thousand to the Early '300, Nuoro, Ilisso, 1993, sheet 97;
F. Segni Pulvirenti - A. Sari, Late Gothic and Renaissance Architecture. Nuoro, Ilisso, 1994, sheet 69;
A. Pillittu, Archdiocese of Oristano, series “Churches and Sacred Art in Sardinia”, Cagliari, Zonza, 2003.