MP3 Audio Guide

The Church Ruin

Hello. You are standing in front of the ruins of the Church of Santa Lucia. Santa Lucia was built before 1119, when we have the first historical mention of it. It was rebuilt in late Renaissance style in the years before 1606, was renovated in 1912, and was largely demolished in 1947 in spite of only minor bomb damage from World War II.

If you are standing along the long side of the grey fence, you can see what is left of the right side of the church. The entrance would have been on your right, along Via Barcelona. From there you would have gone down three steps into the church, under a wide barrel vault, with three chapels each on either side. Above the altar, you would have seen a renaissance-style hemispherical dome.

Santa Lucia was the oldest church inside Cagliari's city walls, known for nearly a century before Pisa founded the Castello neighborhood in the early 13th Century. The architectural elements visible today - the sacristy at the rear left and the three chapels - are from the reconstruction phase of the church during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

CM: EC/BSK

Copyright: MC