496 Coroneo
The creation of the crypt initiated the course of work on the reconstruction
of the cathedral of Santa Maria, concluded between 1669 and 1703, and gener-
ated an architecture that, despite its “modern” accents, was Late Mannerist in
its basic typology and Baroque in its ornamental surface and internal lighting
effects. Initiative for the building came from Archbishop Pietro Vico; the recon-
struction of the nave, with piers and wide arcades replacing the Romanesque
colonnades, was entrusted to a certain master, Francesco Solaro, in 1693, and
later to Domenico Spotorno, presumably the acting foreman of the project.
The final phase must have consisted of the execution of the facade, based on
the plan of the architect, Pietro Fossati, which survived until the early decades
of the twentieth century. From 1930–1933, the facade was demolished and re-
placed by the present neo-Romanesque iteration, which is based on a design
by the architect, Francesco Giarrizzo.
The continuity of this syncretic course in architecture is perceptible in
other building campaigns throughout the seventeenth century. For instance,
various buildings employed the Catalan-Gothic scheme of the square crenel-
lated facade, bisected by a cornice of classicist ashlar, and sometimes provided
with angular buttresses, but always with large rose windows, as well as portals
with either Late Gothic or Renaissance ornament. Two examples include the
parish church of San Giacomo in Nughedu Santa Vittoria (before 1634–1674)
and the sanctuary of San Mauro in Sorgono (late sixteenth through early to
mid-seventeenth centuries).
The severity of the latter’s interior can be paired with the exuberant internal
definition of the parish church of San Sebastiano in Sorradile (built between
1636–1642), which features a majestic facade with a semicircular tympanum—
a common scheme in the Iberian Baroque. An analogous eclecticism, in its
ability to combine individual elements of the Mannerist syntax with a surface
definition exemplified by Baroque models, characterizes the parish church of
the Vergine del Buon Cammino in Ardauli (1630s–1690). The ornamental rep-
ertoire of the church exemplifies the high point of the work of local craftsmen
known as picapedrers or piccapedras, who were responsible for the exterior
doors and windows in so much of the surviving civic architecture in central
Sardinia.
Translated by Irina Oryshkevich and Michelle Hobart