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Note that Cagliari is at the bottom of the island of Sardinia, a funny place to serve as its capital. However, before roads, the best way to get from one place to the other would be by sea -- and any seaport would be as central as any other. If you flew due West, you'd first pass Barcelona and eventually Baltimore.
Like Rome and Istanbul, Cagliari prides itself on being built on seven hills. It is closer to Africa than anywhere on the Italian mainland. In historic times, the Phoenicians came here first and eventually Carthage made it one of its most important ports. The great maritime power of Pisa took it in the 11th century in order to counter the Saracen pirates who were wreaking havoc along the coast of the Italian peninsula. The kingdom of Aragon (that would eventually become Spain) ran it from the 14th through 17th century and left many of the buildings with a Spanish-Baroque flavor.
Obviously, where there was Carthage, there would be Rome. Even before Rome wiped its biggest rival from the face of the earth, it took Cagliari from them in 238 B.C.E. Except for 80 years of Vandal rule, Roman or Byzantine rule lasted until the Giudicato era dominated by Pisa (11th century.) Other than the old theater carved out of the limestone that defines Cagliari's seven hills, we didn't see many Roman remains. (Most Roman theaters were built on flat ground -- the Greek theaters were, like this one, built into steep hills.) Townsfolk still flock here for open air entertainment and many bombed out of their homes lived here during WWII. Rome ruled unrivaled and so this town had little need for fortification. Not so in the middle ages when the town stole theater stones to build protective walls. If this sky looks hazy beyond that container port, clean your monitor: Cagliari's air is the cleanest in Italy. (We won't mention that it's in the bottom 10% in solid waste management.)
There was a need for the theater to yield its stones to make walls: the Saracen pirates were terrorizing many Mediterranean ports. The mercantile power Pisa took over Cagliari and fortified it as one of its bases. At left we see the Pisan (and later Spanish) walled divisions which still define neighborhoods today. While the walls are mostly gone and replaced by wide boulevards a la Paris, a few defensive towers still rise above the tiled roofs of this town.
For the most part, these walls have been removed although they show through at the edges of the castle hill as we see here. (Later ,we'll talk about that cathedral showing at center).
What's left of the walls is generally well maintained and documented (including some English :) For instance, this is the Porta Cristina constructed with prison labor around 1825 when city walls would be meaningless for defense and access to the citadel from the west became attractive. In order to prepare for the last war, the army ordered a drawbridge built in front of it. Being Italy, this never happened. The gateway fared better than the queen of Savoy for which it was named; her marriage was childless, threatening the survival of the House of Savoy.
Just beyond Porta Cristina rises this dramatic gate leading into the former arsenal which has been converted to a modern museum complex. Long before that, this area held the cisterns for Punic and Roman settlers.
The upper city still contains some government buildings and a cathedral. This building once housed the Viceroy (who would govern Sardinia on behalf of the Spanish crown.) Like any Italian monument worth its salt, its plaza has been converted into a parking lot.
This spot had been a fort but the Aragon crown ordered it to become the seat of the Sardinian government. The Austrians came through in 1714-1718 and eventually handed over the island to the House of Savoy. In 1885, after the unification of Italy, it became the seat of the Sardinian provincial government. The Savoy kings ruled from Turin in the Piedmont area of the Italian mainland and had their Piedmont military architects give this building a "Savoy" look with three levels held together visually with pilasters...
...and with stern Doric columns framing a lunette doorway. Note the Sardinian "four moors" flag flying (2nd from right). Among the other major buildings of this area of the citadel is the cathedral which we will visit later.
The southernmost area of the fortifications now serves as a modern promenade filled with tourists and yuppie watering holes. Those arches overlooking the Gulf of the Angels ...
... are the graffiti-stained limestone remnants of fortifications which have been turned ...
... into an elegant arch and stairway which now guard a busy transit area. (Please ignore the electric lines that don't meet in this software-stitched picture.) Originally the Bastion of San Remy, it's a turn-of-the-20th century edifice that can't quite decide if it should be Neo-classical or Art Nouveau Liberty.
Cagliarians call this "the bastion" but its official name is The Terazza Umberto I. (Perhaps you think it's a bit like Rome's Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II designed earlier but built later). Its construction was part of a half-century of town remodeling meant to integrate the fading upper town into the expanding city below. Not that long after it was finished, the allies damaged it severely during WWII bombing.
Streets from the bastion lead down to the shoreline which is edged with arcaded buildings along Via Roma. They recall the Rue de Rivoli that Napoleon built across from the Louvre so that he would have an easy escape from the Parisian mobs. These galleries lead to another monumental building created about the time of the Bastion San Remy...
...the Town Hall, shown here facing Cagliari's port but a little distorted by the wide-angle lens. Completed in 1907, this limestone building (designed by Turin architect Crescentino Caselli and engineer Annibale Rigotti) can't decide whether to be neo-Gothic or the then trendy Art Nouveau Liberty style. Its seven arches maintain the arcades of Via Roma. The center arch leads to an elegant courtyard. Two octagon towers define the center on each side of an Art Nouveau eagle. Shorter obelisks hold the corners.
Cagliari's blue and red flag flies at far right. The European Union's blue flag seems strangely transparent at left. The lions of Pisa still hold sway a half-millennium after they left the port which this building faces. Under the direction of its visionary mayor/lawyer/journalist/poet/novelist, Ottone Bacaredda, many buildings which combine Art Nouveau and traditional Sardinian flower decorations were constructed around the turn of the 20th century when wealth from the now-unified Italy poured into Cagliari. (Recall the Bastion of St. Remy which opens the medieval citadel to the sea and this new center of power.)
The side of City Hall leads up a hill along a street that skirts the western edge of the citadel. This street and Via Roma (which it intersects) outline the old Roman complex (Castrum.) The destruction of the old city walls opened up real estate with which to construct grand boulevards inspired by the urban planning of Baron Haussmann's Paris. This building was also heavily damaged during WWII allied bombings. It faces a highly strategic port and bombs were not very accurate in those days.
Shortly up that hill, we see Cagliari's street life unfold beneath the towers of its medieval citadel.
Warning: the rest of this presentation displays the churches of Cagliari. If these slides have churched you out, ite missa est. OK, you've been warned. Let's start then with the two most decorated churches here, starting with the Duomo. Cagliari's St. Mary's Cathedral was first raised by the Pisans in the 13th century; and looking at its facade at left and the Pisa cathedral at right, you note the resemblance.
However, what you're looking at is, in fact, a 1930 remake of the what Cagliari thought the cathedral looked like 7 centuries earlier. In between, the Genoese had replaced the earlier front with a then in vogue Baroque facade around 1700.
Thanks to Wikipedia for this old picture of the Baroque facade which the Spanish erected in 1702. An early 20th century proposed restoration turned contentious; for two decades, the church was faceless until the "restoration" of the Pisan facade in 1933.
Restored in 1999, the square bell tower (Campanile) is somewhat original. The church's pink and beige neighbor at right on Duomo square is the Civic Palace. Like the cathedral, it dates to the 12th century and housed the local government until 1906 when the city council moved into that large white building on Via Roma we saw earlier. A 1787 rehab left this palace permanently baroque.
This more distant picture shows the layout of the cathedral emerging above the old city: a traditional cross shape with a Renaissance dome over the crossing.
Marble arched lunettes frame Byzantium-flavored mosaics above the facade's three doorways..
This is Cagliari's third cathedral but the first on this spot as the town center moved after the Pisans conquered the area in 1258. This church was first called St. Mary's of the Castle (Santa Maria di Castello) as it was inside the citadel. Above, Cagliari's patron Saint Saturninus blesses his town with scholarly palm in hand. Venerated at first as a local saint beheaded during the Roman Diocletian's persecution, his lineage is confused and he was probably modeled on another Saturninus from nearby North Africa.
Pisa, Genoa, and Spain have left us with an interior of Baroque lipstick on a Gothic pig. The Genoese architect who created the 1702 baroque facade outside redid the interior at the same time. This wide-angle distortion shows a bit of the nave and two side aisles, each of which has three chapels under oval domes.
This became the most important church on Sardinia when the Pisans made Cagliari the capital of the island. It started life as Pisan-Romanesque but acquired a lot of baroque trappings in the 16th and 17th centuries when the Spanish took over. The 1618 presbytery rises on marble steps over a crypt.
The nave ceiling holds a monumental painting called the "Allegory of the Sardinian Faith" by Filippo Figari who started his career as an editorial cartoonist, directed various artistic efforts for the Fascist regime, and died in 1975.
Figari fills his painting with layers of people at various levels of sanctity. If fascist-modern is not your preferred style, try high Gothic...
On either side of the rear (west) door, pulpits rise above Doric columns and strongly suggest the magnificent carved pulpits in Pisa -- these are extraordinary marble sculptures and serve as a gothic graphic novel of religious scenes. These were originally carved by Maestro Guglielmo of Pisa for that town's cathedral. They were moved here in 1312 when Giovanni Pisano completed one of the greatest Gothic sculptures that you know today as Pisa's pulpit.
Descriptive signs refer to these as "ambos" which are separate pulpits for reading the epistles and the gospels. However, that is not accurate here as there was once a single large pulpit. When the Baroque re-decorators came in, they could not tolerate such a Gothic masterpiece and replaced it in the presbytery with a marble pulpit. Fortunately they kept this mid-12th century jewel, separating it in two and placing it on either side of the main doorway.
Here's a few photos from our last trip to Pisa showing the pulpit that replaced the one sent into exile in Cagliari. Wealth from places such as Sardinia were pouring into the maritime republic of Pisa and artisans were tasked to show it. Cagliari got the hand-me-downs.
We're back in Cagliari's cathedral now where St. John's evangelistic eagle holds the lectern over a variety of religious iconography dealing with the birth (left) and resurrection (right panels) of Christ.
Three angels (one headless) hold the lectern over the heads of St. Paul and his lieutenants, Timothy and Titus. (We're talking epistles, here!) One wonders if scenes were carved on the back side as well. As in the pulpit now at Pisa, lions originally held up the base of the columns here but have been redirected elsewhere in the church (as we shall soon see).
Here we see the Transfiguration with Christ at center between the great Old Testament prophets Moses and Elijah. (One of whom needs to get a head.)
Above the Baptizer John's hand, the dovish Holy Spirit hovers above Jesus (whose gown has become the Jordan's river's waves) while angels (check the detail of the feathers on their wings) get ready to redress Him while...
...below (and 30 years earlier) a headless Mary presents the Infant to Simon.
Maestro Guglielmo's Pisan-Romanesque backgrounds are as detailed as his swirling fabrics on these Easter morning (and no longer mourning) women at Christ's empty tomb.
The oil paintings from the Baroque are well restored as we see with the Evangelists' representations on each of the dome supports. Here we have the physician Luke with his bull.
John and his eagle look quite mannerist except for his halo.
These evangelists support the Baroque transept dome which appears to be decorated trompe-l'œil.
The north transept holds the resplendent marble mausoleum of Martin I of Sicily (1374-1409) who died during the conquest of Sardinia by Spain. Three centuries after his birth, it was sculpted by Giulio Aprile from 1676-80. The seal at center is of the House of Aragon, the kings that conquered the island. Martin's tomb was more noble than his death: Martin's men were outnumbered by the Sardinian mercenaries they faced -- but were better trained. He died a few days after the indecisive battle of Saniuri -- not from battle wounds, but rather malaria which he supposedly caught from his local mistress. To the right of this marble explosion is ...
...the simplest and oldest chapel in the Duomo, called the Chapel Pisana. Among the baroque splendors of this cathedral, weekday masses are held here in front of this simple Tuscan-Gothic window and its early 14th century crossed vault. The altar holds a fragment from the old Gothic lectern.
And to the left of the Northern transept is the Royal Gallery built to protect the exiled Spanish kings while Napoleon raged upon their soil around 1800.
Under the dome, the presbytery rises about 5 feet above...
... the inlaid marble floor which was restored in 1956. Raising the presbytery allowed the creation of a crypt below in 1614. Lions guard this area including ...
...those "borrowed" from the Gothic ambo pulpits on the back wall. If these refer to the evangelists, then what is Mark's lion trying to do to Luke's bull? Does this commemorate the inception of epistles? Whatever, these leonine shoulders that once raised high Pisa's pulpit now hold the balustrades that support the railings of the stairs that climb to the main altar.
We found the presbytery communion rail decorated with flowers -- wedding decorations.
Beneath the presbytery, we find several early 17th century crypts as ornate as anything in the church above. We look here to the front...
...and the rear where even the stairs are a work of art (albeit without lions.)
Such a stairway deserves such a rosetted ceiling.
The chapel is called the shrine of the martyrs as bas-reliefs of saints filled wall niches...
...such as here where we see a busy executioner who, like a barber with hair on the floor, has to walk through the detritus he creates. Supposedly the relics of 179 saints are kept in niches behind these reliefs.
Not all the remains here rest behind figures of saints. This Roman sarcophagus holds the bones of Sant'Antioco, a local saint who died on a nearby island that now bears his name. Enough full-frontal cherubs for you?
Just outside the cathedral, we turn a corner and find...
...the ornate portal of the south transept beneath a supporting buttress.
This well-restored Gothic portal would overwhelm the simple mosaics over the facade doors if it were seen on the same plane.
An island with 98% of its population Catholic has a lot of churches, especially in its capital, Cagliari. We've found in our travels that after the Cathedral (Duomo), the most likely art-packed place in a European town is the Jesuit church. Cagliari's did not disappoint.
A street now called Via Azuni. (but once named after this church) climbs a hill in Cagliari's Stampace district with streets radiating to its right. Rising baroque at the end is San Michele (Michael) Church. Once this building housed Jesuit novices and clergy; but that housing has been turned into a military hospital for soldiers not necessarily for Christ. Nevertheless, all are observed with upraised sword by warrior-archangel Michael atop the ornate facade.
This wide-angle shows that the church is actually small (as we'd expect since its audience was the clergy) but elegant: it unfolds under the dome at upper right. The majority of the space behind this Spanish baroque facade was devoted to the residence which was built earlier in the 16th century. Did you catch the flat Spanish bell tower to the left of the dome? The church itself was built from 1674-1712 while Spain ruled Sardinia; I would guess the facade was added during that time to harmonize the two structures. The atrium behind it serves both buildings. This facade was extensively restored in the 1990s but the ugly scaffolding suggests its a work in progress. (Often Italian churches take centuries to build and it seems even longer to restore in modern times).
The Jesuits arrived in Sardinia in 1559 and in Cagliari 5 years later. A wealthy Spanish-Sardinian lawyer funded the building as it was to include his tomb. The 1990's restoration has left portions of the facade in excellent shape. We look here at the middle section with the Jesuit's IHS symbol beneath a crown. Just below, caryatids (really telamons) hold the ornate lintel of the broken arched pediment.
Behind the three arches is a large atrium which serves both the church (right) and the old noviate (now gated to protect the military hospital.) But the eye here is drawn to the Pisan-ish pulpit supported by sets of columns.
Originally this pulpit served the nearby church of San Francisco which collapsed. Eventually it was moved here to preserve it. (Apparently the Jesuits were better architects than the Franciscans.)
At left we have St. Paul and a skinny eagle supporting lecterns; these rise from swirls of mostly secular iconography. The Latin inscription wraps around the entire pulpit and commemorates the visit of the Spanish King (and Holy Roman Emperor) Charles V. That über-Hapsburg supposedly heard mass from this perch in 1535 as his fleet waited in the harbor a half mile away. If so, this became a bully pulpit as Charles was on his way to attack the Ottoman empire at Tunis, a short row to the south at the tip of Africa. Although Catholic, many of his 74 galleys were rowed by Protestants. (OK, 1200 of them had to be chained to their oars.)
To the right of the Pulpit of Charles V and up a set of steps, this doorway leads into San Michele's church.
Inside, the small octagon bursts with baroque splendor, so much so that alpha angel Michael at center is almost an afterthought. Many of the oil paintings and the frescoes were restored as well during the 1990s cleanup.
Chapels radiate from most of the octagon's sides. These hold marble baroque altars depicting lives of Jesuit saints to remind the novitiates of their heritage.
Here Ignatius of Loyola prays among cherubs.
Marble regales the eye from ceiling to floor as we see here...
...and here.
The marble pulpit thematically fits the interior of the church but seems small after passing Charles V's Gothic pulpit in the atrium.
Besides the large Duomo and the small but elegantly Baroque San Michele's, Cagliari sports many other religious buildings.
While this is not too impressive, what was inside was. It was a crypt (then a monastery) holding the remains of one of Christendom's most important saints, Augustine of Hippo. This fifth century doctor of the church lived in Africa where he invented original sin and the just war. (He has probably been rivaled as an intellectual only by Al Gore who invented both the internet and global warning.) In 722 A.C.E., Augustine's remains were moved to the the mainland city of Pavia to keep them out of the hands of the pirate Saracens from Augustine's Northern Africa.
Up this huge stairway behind the scaffolding rises the late 18th century Piedmont Baroque Church of St. Anne, the parish church for this neighborhood. This replaced an earlier 13th century Pisan church and was restored after being damaged in the WWII bombing. How long this facade will be covered in the open air museum called Italy is anyone's guess. However, the townspeople have a saying that things will last as long as the construction of St. Anne's which is equivalent to our expression "when hell freezes over." (Won't happen Nobelly says Al Gore.) Work started here in 1785 and the bell towers completed in 1938! The allies bombed it 5 years later.
This area has several caves which became important to the early Christian church here. Behind St. Anne's is the chapel of Santa Restituta, built over a cave (crypt) used first by the Phoenicians and the Romans and then as an early Christian church. Supposedly in this cave, St. Restituta was imprisoned and martyred; her remains were recovered from the long-abandoned spot in 1614 and this church was later placed over the cave. Before that, it housed Christians who fled Africa as the Vandals raided it. During WWII, it served as a bomb shelter for this area. But an important artist died while trying to break its locked doors down during a bombing raid. During our visit, it was still locked. Fortunately, the skies were quiet except for a bit of rain.
However, we found the church of Cagliari's patron saint open for business. Sant'Efisio worked for the Roman emperor Diocletian who sent him here to put down a Christian uprising -- but he went native and converted. This was followed by torture in a cave on this spot and the loss of his head in nearby Nora. This Piedmont Baroque church dates from 1780. (The House of Savoy ruled the Kingdom of Sardinia, but lived in Turin in the mainland Piedmont region. They liked Piedmont architects and sent them to Cagliari often.)
Santa Efisio's can't rival the Duomo for size or the Jesuit San Michele for Baroque elegance, but it is dear to Cagliarians who pull this carriage through the streets during the annual Mayday procession honoring this saint. The route proceeds to Via Roma where this chariot is greeted by the sirens of the ships anchored in the port. The procession ends in the town of Nora where Efisio traded his head for martyrdom and the perpetual adulation of Sardinians.
Sant'Efisio has a nave fronted by this marble staircase and Baroque altarpiece. Three other chapels display more marble and oil paintings including one with cannon balls shot by the French in 1793. The saint, called out of retirement, saved the city from those temporary Franco-atheists. A nearby crypt holds the prison where this soldier-saint was tortured.
Another church, dedicated to the Abbot St. Anthony, is nearly hidden along Cagliari's busy pedestrianized shopping district leading from the upper town. This facade was integrated into the wall around the 14th century St. Anthony hospital (now long converted to retail).
While much of the wall is non-descript, the doorway informs us that what's behind is religously baroque. The crest is that of the Hospitaller Order of St John of God, an order of monks who still today run hospitals. St. Anthony, under the shell of St. James, patron of Spain, is flanked by a small pig-demonstrating his love for animals.
Like the Jesuit San Michele, this 18th century Baroque church is pretty much all dome.
Six shallow side altars line the octagon, separated by high relief Corinthian pilasters.
A block down the hill from St. Anthony Abbot is a larger church with elements of many styles from Gothic to neoclassic. It's an oratory dedicated to the Holy Sepulcher and was built on land originally used as a cemetery (and scattered with earth from the church of the same name in Jerusalem.) A brotherhood dedicated to providing Christian burial to the poor built this church and developed the cemetery in what is now the square. This neoclassical doorway was rebuilt in 1899 as the main entrance. (The original facade faces a steep stairway to the left).
Most iconography here supports the theme of death and entombment. Note the ladders between the twisted columns in the highest niche above the altar: the better to assist those taking Christ's body from the cross and resting it in the Holy Sepulcher. At center is a Pieta.
The raised transept altar provides access for the musty crypt below. The crypt was discovered in modern times. The 16th century ribbed vault rises high above the neoclassic marble altar and balustraded stairs.
In 1686 Cagliari's viceroy built this dome and a spectacular Baroque chapel beneath it to thank the Virgin for healing his daughter. Some of these frescoes that radiate from a painting of Christ with one angel wing are incompletely restored.
Our last church is the Catalan-Gothic structure dedicated to Saint Eulalia, the patron saint of Barcelona who, like Saint Efisio, was martyred during Diocletian's persecution.
Note the Last Supper and the double set of organ pipes behind the main altar. Under this presbytery are remains of an older church dating back as far as 1371.
But this pulpit is decidedly modern, even if its marble reliefs pay homage to the ornate baroque marble pulpits we see in the Duomo and San Michele church.
The Aragon crown built this church in the Gothic-Catalan style but it has been updated repeatedly as this neo-classic side altar demonstrates. Next door is the Museum of the Treasury of St. Eulalia which holds some of the wealth from several of the area's churches. Underneath all of this is a huge Roman cistern.
Thanks for viewing. See all of our pictures by clicking at this link: http://www.dickschmitt.com/travels.htm .
