Villacidro, Santa Barbara Museum

The museum, set up in the Oratory of Our Lady, was created with the intention of enhancing all the architectural resources and sacred furnishings of the Parish Church of Santa Barbara. Three churches face each other in a triangle over the churchyard creating an original architectural setting: the Parish Church of Santa Barbara, the Oratory of Our Lady with its unique loggia, and the Oratory of Souls. On them there is an enormous wealth of sacred furnishings consisting of statues, silver, altars and wooden furniture.
There is no shortage of historical documents, of different kinds, coming from the country church of San Sisinnio (a solar building of 1600 under renovation), the Oratory of St. Efisio (a small church in vogue until 1950 and now intended for other use) and the Mercedari convent standing until the early 1900s. All these objects have marked the history of Villacidro, keeping his memory alive.
The first layout of the museum is organized in the oratory of Our Lady (1600) where, in the well-preserved original architectural space, you can see the silver artifacts of the most illustrious Sardinian silversmiths such as Cabras, Usay, Mamely, etc. They tell us about the evolution of liturgical furnishings since the 16th century.
A temple tower (Gothic), a bucket for holy water and a Peace precede, very ancient and prestigious, a large series of artifacts rich in local history. The Virgin of the Rosary by the illustrious sculptor Lonis, a series of crucifixes including the “Sorrowful Crucifix”, a rare 16th century workmanship, the polychrome wood of the Annunciated Virgin and numerous 17th century statues are still located in the presbytery and in the ancient sacristy.
Other statues by prestigious artists including the statue of Saint Barbara by Giuseppe Zanda and numerous other valuable works can be visited in the other two churches overlooking the museum.