Oratorio delle Anime
The Oratorio delle Anime ( Oratory of Souls ) is a pre-Romanesque church in Massama, a suburb of Oristano , in Sardinia . It is located in the immediate vicinity of the parish church. All evidence suggests that the oratorio was written around the 8th century; however, it has only been proven in documents since the 14th century.
The Oratorio delle Anime is not one of the Byzantine central buildings typical of the assumed time of origin (like the Oratorio in Assemini ), but is completely out of line with its floor plan in the form of an Egyptian handle cross ( ankh ) .
The church was virtually unknown until the 1970s. Renata Serra and Roberto Coroneo referred again in a publication from 2004 ( Sardegna preromanica e romanica ) to them and a group of small cross-shaped church buildings from the High Middle Ages in Sardinia.
The Oratorio delle Anime has a Romanesque facade and a small dome over the octagonal drum . Small trumpets (built-in niches) in the corner of the octagon that supports the round dome fill the transition to the circle. This type of construction comes from the Byzantine world. It is therefore assumed that Visigoths originating from or expelled from Spain brought the construction with them. This is also evidenced by the mixture of beam and dome ceiling, a simple frieze and the horseshoe shape of the apse .
A comparable floor plan can be found at Santa Maria de Terrasa in Spain , which is based on Visigothic- Arian elements.
literature
- Renata Serra: L'oratorio delle Anime a Massama (con rilievi del monumento curati da Augusto Garau). In: Annali delle Facoltà di Lettere, Filosofia e Magistero dell'Università di Cagliari. Vol. 34, 1971, ZDB -ID 281113-3 , pp. 33-55.
Web links
Coordinates: 40 ° 3 ′ 40.5 ″ N , 8 ° 27 ′ 3.1 ″ E