Architecture in Sardinia from the 5th to the 16th Centuries 487
all from the need to accommodate the population of the area. Thus, the parish
church meant to serve the liturgical demands of villages with low populations,
had a single wooden-roofed vessel terminating in a semi-circular apse. On the
other hand, larger communities or diocesan jurisdictions—which were some-
times as large as actual cities—built churches with analogous wooden roofs
and eastern terminations with a semicircular apse, but added aisles separated
from the nave by arcades resting on columns or piers. Double-nave plans do
exist within the range of planimetric variations, which include porticos before
facades; transepts of varying length and height, sometimes with apses; crypts
below presbyteries; and three apses with ambulatories around the central
one, occasionally with radiating chapels. Roofing solutions vary considerably,
as well: wood over the nave and stone over the two side aisles; vaults over all
three; and barrel vaults with or without intrados or groin vaults. A distinctive
feature of Romanesque builders lies in their perfected masonry techniques,
easily recognizable in the striking precision with which they made their cuts
and positioned stone blocks from scaffolds anchored to already-constructed
sections of walls.
The distribution of Romanesque architecture in Sardinia is certainly linked
to political conditions, but the stable land settlement patterns introduced by
the Phoenicians at the outset of urban civilization proved ultimately forma-
tive for the island’s architectural, economic, and political profile. Following the
dynamics of settlement, most of the churches built in the era of the giudicati
are in the western half of the island, along roads that follow the principal axes,
in areas either on the plains or halfway up hills. These dynamics further related
to ports, and to politics of control over the profits arising from intense exploita-
tion of land—connected to the clergy, or belonging to royalty or aristocracy—
through mining, farming, and livestock cultivation. The eastern coast, which
has few important landing stages, and, above all, is squeezed by the massive
elevation of the central plane and internal mountain range, retains few traces
of significant building activity in this period.
Another possible key for reading Romanesque architecture in Sardinia lies
in the use of locally quarried types of stone. The availability of sedimentary
stone led to the use of limestone, tufa, or sandstone facing, while an abun-
dance of volcanic stone resulted in the use of basalt, granite, or andesite facing.
Transitional zones between sedimentary and volcanic stone beds are likewise
those in which two-tone work—bands of light limestone blocks alternating
with ones of dark basalt—is found in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
In Sardinia, Romanesque was an imported architectural language. The
architects, projects, and formal and technical knowledge arrived from con-
tinental Europe and fused with the age-old experience of local masons and