Sassari, Church of Santa Caterina

The church of Santa Caterina is inside the ancient walls, near the Duomo, annexed to the former College of the Society of Jesus, now home to the National Art Gallery.
The structure of the Church of Jesus and Mary, today the church of Santa Caterina, translates for the first time in Sardinia the counter-reform liturgical language codified during the Council of Trent (1545-1563) and widely used by the Society of Jesus. The Sassari church takes up the model of the Jesus of Rome, both in the structural structure and in the symbolic value of the architectural elements, differing, however, with some original solutions adopted during construction.
The Jesuits arrived in Sassari in 1559 but, due to a dispute with the Turritan Chapter, they began building the church only starting in 1579. The project, outlined by Father Giovanni Maria Bernardoni (Tristan's collaborator and master builder for the work of the Jesuit colleges on the island), once sent to Rome for approval, was profoundly transformed in the area of the presbytery and transept by Father Giovanni de Rosis (also a student and later successor of Tristan). In 1583 Bernardoni had to leave the island; the local workers, without a guide and still tied to the late Gothic tradition, proved to have difficulties in building the vaults of the classroom and the dome. It was precisely because of these obstacles, and because of some financial constraints, that the work lasted until 1609, the year of the solemn inauguration.
Overall, the building is based on the architectural canons of the late Renaissance, in the manner of severe classicism dear to Philip II, however, there are elements typical of the late Gothic style, in particular in the roofing system.
The nave is divided by Doric pillars into three cross-facing bays, which are overlooked by three chapels on each side. At the intersection of the room with the transept, the dome is set up. The quadrangular presbytery has a lower barrel vault than those of the nave. A unifying element of the room is the projecting frame that continues into the transept and the side walls of the apse.
The façade, with limestone ashlars, is divided into two orders, starting from an entablature decorated with ovals and denticles and connected by side volutes. The lower order, divided into three pilaster mirrors, has at its center a classicistic tympanated portal, flanked by four Corinthian semicolones that support an lintel surmounted by a triangular tympanum. The external semicolumns, extending beyond the entablature, are connected with two Plateresque semipillars that, after crossing the marcapian frame, continue until they join the frame of the structure of the curvilinear tympanum that crowns the façade. The ornaments of the three second-order windows and the frames draw on both the Late Gothic, Mudejar, and Renaissance traditions, thus reproducing the syncretism observed within the church.

History of studies
The church is the subject of a brief sheet in the volume by Francesca Segni Pulvirenti and Aldo Sari on late Gothic and Renaissance architecture (1994) and is fully analyzed in that of Marisa Porcu Gaias on the urban and architectural history of Sassari (1996).

Bibliography
C. Maltese, Art in Sardinia from V to XVIII, Rome, De Luca, 1962, sch. 116-117;
V. Mossa, Architectures Sassari, Gallizzi, 1965;
R. Serra, “The Jesuit 'mode' and the architectures of the Society of Jesus in Sardinia”, in Art and Culture of the 17th and 18th centuries in Sardinia. Proceedings of the National Conference, Naples, 1984, pp. 173-183;
R. Turtas, The University House, The Building Policy of the Society of Jesus in the Decades of Formation of the Sassari University (1562-1632), Sassari, 1986;
A. Sari, “The Architecture of the Sixteenth Century”, in Sardinian Society in the Spanish Age, edited by F. Manconi, I, Quart, 1992, pp. 74-89; F. Segni Pulvirenti - A. Sari, Late Gothic and Renaissance Architecture.
Nuoro, Ilisso, 1994, sheet 53;
M. Porcu Gaias, Sassari. Architectural and urban history from its origins to the 17th century, Nuoro, Ilisso, 1996;
A. Sari, The Church in the Archdiocese of Sassari, series “Churches and Sacred Art in Sardinia”, Sestu, 2003.