Sassari, Church of the Sacred Heart

Thanks to its height, the Church of the Sacred Heart stands out in the main square of the working-class district located beyond the Rosello bridge around 1925.
The church was requested by Archbishop Mazzotti to the architect Ambrogio Annoni, a student of Camillo Boito and Luca Beltrami, an illustrious representative of stylistic restoration.
There are two design versions (1936 and 1937), but the construction process, which began with the first stone laid in 1943, came to the blessing of the building in 1952 and ended only in 1969 with the decorative part.
The building has a straight façade crossed by pilasters and rounded at the side corners, with a bell tower that rises in axis with the portal, progressively decreasing its square base with three overlapping volumes. Inside, a single aisle opens in width as it approaches the presbytery.
The decorative interventions follow a unitary doctrinal plan, culminating in the evangelical meditation on the Sacred Heart: the author was the painter Costantino Spada, who in addition to creating frescoes and several altarpieces (1960-68), supplied the cartons for the stained glass windows (made by Giuliani, Rome 1961-64) and the mosaics.

History of studies
A review of studies can be found in the bibliography relating to the fact sheet in the volume of the “History of Art in Sardinia” on nineteenth-century architecture (2001).

Bibliography
"Progetto per una Chiesa parrocchiale in Sassari", in Case d'oggi, 1936, 9, p. 36;
"Una chiesa a Sassari", in Case d'oggi, 1937, 1, pp. 23-24;
F. Masala, Architettura dall'Unità d'Italia alla fine del '900. Nuoro, Ilisso, 2001, scheda 78.