Places of Faith

Walk for: 

6 km

Difficulty: 

  • easy

St. Augustine Crypt

The definition says it, it is hidden, but the crypt of St. Augustine is occulted for other reasons. It can be accessed, on scheduled days, only from the entrance hall of the Accardo building, in the Largo Carlo Felice. Only recently, with the displacement of a business that occluded the entrance, it is once again fully visible the lunette that reveals how, from 504 to 722, the site enshrined the remains of St. Augustine of Hippo, arriving at Cagliari in sequel to St. Fulgentius of Ruspe. In the second half of the XVI century, churches and convents that stood outside the city walls were demolished and then rebuilt in front of the current venue.

Church of St. Augustine

Come in from Via Baylle (street) or from Largo Carlo Felice. Come in and ask for Don Vincenzo Fois. The parish priest of Sant’Agostino (St. Augustine) will take you through the history of the Renaissance church: its patron saint and its artistic heritage scattered among the houses and the churches of the city, which with passion and tenacity, he seeks to recover.

He will show you the cloister wall now inaccessible, the silvers, the classical frame surmounting the main entrance and the fragments of altarpieces rebuilt with the patience of a lover.

The Church of Sant'Agostino was built in the Marina neighbourhood around 1577 and according to the Renaissance style, to replace the original church, of which only the crypt remained, incorporated in the Palazzo Accardo. The main entrance, crowned by a stone frame finely decorated with classical motifs, is on Via Baylle (street). However the side entrance located on the Largo Carlo Felice, which leads into the courtyard of the sacristy, is more used.

Internally, the church has a Greek cross groundplan, surmounted by barrel vaults and a dome at the intersection of the arms.

 

Phone number: 070664236

Opening hours: 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. / 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Church of St. Anna

Its green domes break the linear plan of the terracotta tiles of the roofs of Stampace. Majestic, yet maternal, the church Sant’Anna is the epicentre of the neighbourhood. To sit for a moment on the steps of the Sant’Anna’s wide staircase or in the coffee shops that offers Via Azuni (street) between the flower-filled balconies allow catching your breath in all its intimacy. The church has always been significant to the Stampace community, so as to be fully restored after the severe damage suffered during the bombing of 1943, which tore the historic city centre.

Phone: 070663963

St. Michael Church

The archangel Michael kindly observes the pedestrians. They seek him in the abundance of baroque façade with their nose pointed towards the sky. They seek him and find him. Then they look for the church, and they can’t find it. It seems like the architecture has played a joke on the church of San Michele (St. Michael), unique in the history of the city; its façade is rotated 90 degrees respect to the entrance of worship. This is how is resolved, in a unique balance, the contrast between the excesses of Baroque and Rococo styles and the austerity of the Mysteries, painted and sculpted.

An important historical testimony is the pulpit (from the medieval church of San Francesco, which was destroyed in the nineteenth century) where, during his visit to Cagliari in 1535, Emperor Charles V, attended Mass.

Phone number: 070658626

Opening hours:

Weekdays 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. / 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Holidays 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. / 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

St. Anthony Church

The archangel Michael kindly observes the pedestrians. They seek him in the abundance of baroque façade with their nose pointed towards the sky. They seek him and find him. Then they look for the church, and they can’t find it. It seems like the architecture has played a joke on the church of San Michele (St. Michael), unique in the history of the city; its façade is rotated 90 degrees respect to the entrance of worship. This is how is resolved, in a unique balance, the contrast between the excesses of Baroque and Rococo styles and the austerity of the Mysteries, painted and sculpted.

An important historical testimony is the pulpit (from the medieval church of San Francesco, which was destroyed in the nineteenth century) where, during his visit to Cagliari in 1535, Emperor Charles V, attended Mass.

Phone number: 070658626

Opening hours:

Weekdays 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. / 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Holidays 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. / 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Church of St. Eulalia

A church as a neighbourhood. This is what reflects in the Marina, at Sant’Eulalia, with more souls overlapping and hidden by a contemporary building. Go beyond the pale façade, the square and the bell tower; you will discover an interior of Catalan Gothic style, true to its patron saint from Barcelona. Hundreds of sacred artefacts are displayed in the museum of the treasure. And, under the floor, accessible by a staircase next to the entrance, is present a thirteen-meters Roman road, the heart of an archaeological area that covers 200 square meters.

Phone number: 070663724

Opening hours:

Winter: 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. / 4 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

Summer: 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. /  5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Santo Sepolcro Church

The archangel Michael kindly observes the pedestrians. They seek him in the abundance of baroque façade with their nose pointed towards the sky. They seek him and find him. Then they look for the church, and they can’t find it. It seems like the architecture has played a joke on the church of San Michele (St. Michael), unique in the history of the city; its façade is rotated 90 degrees respect to the entrance of worship. This is how is resolved, in a unique balance, the contrast between the excesses of Baroque and Rococo styles and the austerity of the Mysteries, painted and sculpted.

An important historical testimony is the pulpit (from the medieval church of San Francesco, which was destroyed in the nineteenth century) where, during his visit to Cagliari in 1535, Emperor Charles V, attended Mass.

Phone number: 070658626

Opening hours:

Weekdays 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. / 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Holidays 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. / 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

St. Mary Cathedral

The archangel Michael kindly observes the pedestrians. They seek him in the abundance of baroque façade with their nose pointed towards the sky. They seek him and find him. Then they look for the church, and they can’t find it. It seems like the architecture has played a joke on the church of San Michele (St. Michael), unique in the history of the city; its façade is rotated 90 degrees respect to the entrance of worship. This is how is resolved, in a unique balance, the contrast between the excesses of Baroque and Rococo styles and the austerity of the Mysteries, painted and sculpted.

An important historical testimony is the pulpit (from the medieval church of San Francesco, which was destroyed in the nineteenth century) where, during his visit to Cagliari in 1535, Emperor Charles V, attended Mass.

Phone number: 070658626

Opening hours:

Weekdays 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. / 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Holidays 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. / 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Martyrs Crypt

The eternal sleep, dressed in marble and beauty. The Cripta dei Martiri (Crypt of the Martyrs), located under the presbytery of the Cattedrale di Santa Maria (St. Mary Cathedral) hides 179 relics of martyrs, distributed in small niches made according the will of Francisco de Esquivel (Archbishop of Cagliari from 1605 to 1624) in 1618 with the collaboration of the most renowned masters of Cagliari and Sicily. The main room is completely covered with coloured marble and topped by a low arch barrel vault, marked by panes bearing almost six hundred diamond heads and rosettes. The two side rooms, smaller in size and with a cross vault, are dedicated to St. Saturninus and St. Lucifer.

Phone number: 070663837

E-mail: cattedraledica@tiscali.it

Website: www.duomodicagliari.it

Basilica of Bonaria

O sweet Queen of Sardinia, listen benevolently our humble prayers. It is a hymn to love and fidelity, the Sardinian people’s prayer to Our Lady of Bonaria, arrived from the sea in 1370. The statue was nestled inside a wooden box and, particularly remarkable, with a candle still burning. The Mercedarian friars have dedicated to her the most beautiful and majestic church of the island; white as the winding staircase that connects it to the sea and which, every December is filled with gifts and food for the needy, in a renewed miracle of generosity. The interior is a hitch into the sky, punctuated by chapels with a door that connects the building to a smaller sanctuary. The sacristy overflows with offerings left by the faithful, benefited from the Sardinians’ Madonna.

Opening hours:

Winter: 06:30 a.m. -11:45 a.m. / 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Summer: 06:30 a.m. -11:45 a.m. / 4:30 p.m. - 7:45 p.m

www.bonaria.eu