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Former Convent and St.Agata's Church
Former Convent
The Convent was built according to the peculiar ways of Capuchin architecture, the building finds the most immediate comparisons in the first two convents built in Cagliari by the order, namely those of S. Antonio, of 1591 and of S. Benedetto built in the district namesake in 1653.
The convent of Quartu has the southern side closed almost entirely by the wall of the Church of S. Agata and borders to the north and east with Piazza Matteotti (part of its garden), to the west with the Via Brigata Sassari on which the door opened. original, to the south with the Azuni square.
On this side the entrance to the Good Shepherd rest home was created in 1926.
The current state of the compendium is strongly compromised by the numerous restoration and transformation interventions undergone over time and, in particular, by those carried out at the beginning of the century for the building as a retirement home.
However, the building still retains numerous structures from its original layout. Rectangular in plan, it has a beautiful quadrangle cloister with the traditional cistern in the center, documented for the first time in 1783, but probably existing as early as the seventeenth century.
The southern arm of the cloister, closed by windows and covered in timber in 1926, is leaning against the left wall of the church and, to allow its continuity, the buttresses supporting the transverse thrust of the barrel vault of the nave have been gutted.
The rest of the portico, punctuated by round arches, is covered, in the eastern and northern arms, by a single floor which has replaced the ancient wooden roof for about fifty years; in the western one, on the other hand, from a lowered barrel vault.
A terrace has recently been created on the first two arms, while on the third there are some rooms on the upper floor.
A long barrel-vaulted corridor runs parallel to the northern section of the portico. All around the cloister is a succession of rooms that largely retain the original barrel roof.
The only cross vaulted room is the one that closes the southern corridor of the cloister to the east.
The small room also presents in the eastern part the trace of a round arch that framed a door which is now walled up and connected with the garden behind it.
Also in the southern corridor, close to the room described above, the staircase with a single barrel vaulted flight leads to the first floor.
Some traces of the ancient roof in juniper trunks canes remain in some rooms where it is hidden by recent false ceilings, as elsewhere it has been replaced by heavy concrete slabs.
Saint Agata's Church.
The church was built around the middle of the 12th century in Romanesque style. Destroyed perhaps due to static problems, it was rebuilt in 1280- 1300 on the foundations and part of the perimeter walls of the old building, also using rubble material.
The first records of the church date back to 1291 when the Pope granted an indulgence to the faithful who visited it on the feast days of the Virgin Mary and St Agatha. The single-nave monument, with a rectangular cross-vaulted apse and an architectural style similar to San Francesco di Stampace in Cagliari, was also built by Pisan workers between 1274 and 1285, using Gothic construction methods.
The building fell into gradual abandonment, as shown by the report of the pastoral visit carried out in 1599 by the bishop of Cagliari. In 1631, it was handed over to the Capuchin Fathers, who restored it, making heavy modifications to adapt it to their liturgical needs.
The façade was rebuilt, the wooden roofing of the nave was replaced with barrel and cross vaults, and it was subdivided to create a large presbytery and a back choir with a rectangular apse. In 1702, three chapels were built between the buttresses of the right side, while the convent was added to the left side.
In the second half of the 19th century, following some legislative interventions, the assets of the friars were forfeited to the State and then handed over to the municipality. Around 1900, the entire structure was destined for civil use, but already in 1925, the priest from Quartese Monsignor Virgilio Angioni obtained authorisation for a shelter for the elderly assisted by the Good Shepherd nuns, who used the church as a chapel. In 1985, the convent and church were renamed Sant'Agata. The latest restoration work began in 1990 and was completed in 1997.
Of the primitive Romanesque building, only the foundations and part of the perimeter walls have survived today. The masonry is made of stone and mortar and the roof, covered with tiles, has two levels as it is higher in the part covering the presbytery.
It has a single hall, with a large semicircular apse facing N/E. It has a modest gabled façade with a lunette rectangular portal surmounted by an oculus. Of the Gothic building constructed, as mentioned above, at the end of the 13th century, only the side and rear elevations remain visible, crowned by hanging arches.
The interior has a barrel vault punctuated by two round arches set on corbels. This is followed by a large presbytery behind which are the choir and apse. The left side gives access to the convent, while the sacristy, the choir and three chapels, which were probably built at different times, are on the right.
The church retains only a few of its ancient furnishings, including a valuable 17th-century altarpiece housed in the presbytery, attributed to the Genoese painter Orazio de Ferrari and inserted into the wooden altar of the same period.
Address: Via Brigata Sassari, 35 09045 Quartu Sant'Elena, Sardinia
Source: 'Urban itineraries between archaeology and history' - Liceo Artistico Brotzu and Quartu Sant'Elena Municipal Administration