Architecture in Sardinia from the 5th to the 16th Centuries 477
2 Cruciform-Plan Byzantine Churches
There was a rupture in Sardinia’s building history after 458, when the Vandals,
who had established their own kingdom in Mediterranean Africa, gained con-
trol over the ports of Sardinia. In 534, the Byzantines recaptured the island
and reestablished formal control until the late tenth century. The reconquest
of Sardinia led to the diffusion and imitation of the principal imperial archi-
tectural model: the church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, which
Constantine had founded and which Justinian rebuilt between 536 and 550. It
remains an open question as to who had historical agency in adopting the Holy
Apostles model, and to what degree patrons and builders chose to elaborate it
on the basis of local traditions.
The churches of San Saturnino in Cagliari, Sant’Antioco in the center of the
same city, and San Giovanni di Sinis in the commune of Cabras all feature a
cruciform plan with a dome (Fig. 18.2). The four arches of the central cube,
configured as a baldacchino, connect into as many barrel-vaulted arms. It is
not an easy task to reconstruct their plans exactly, and one may assume as
many independent-cross plans as cross-in-square ones (Fig. 18.3). As much as
the three buildings differ from each other, they all break from their model in
Constantinople by technical and formal elements that probably derived from
a local late antique tradition. For example, their walls are built of stone blocks
rather than of bricks.
Figure 18.2 Sinis. San Giovanni of Sinis church, exterior.
From Coroneo, 1993.