Santa Maria del Regno
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The Romanesque church of Santa Maria del Regno (the Black Cathedral) in Ardara , in Logudoro in the province of Sassari in Sardinia , was consecrated in 1107. The church owes its nickname to the dark rust-colored trachyte masonry . The part of the name "del Regno" refers to the importance of the church as a palace chapel for the Torres judiciary , whose residence was Ardara. Here married in 1238 Enzio , son of the Hohenstaufen Frederick II. , Adelasia (1219-1259), the heir to the Giudicati Torres and Gallura , which is why he later called himself King of Sardinia.
The church is clearly the work of a single, albeit unknown, architect , a rare case in medieval architecture. The builder was a representative of the Lombard current within the Pisan - Tuscan school of the 11th century. Lombard style features, the preference for strong, coherent, clear forms with an aversion to a style that gets bogged down in details, cross vaults with a raised crown and low-lying belt arches, restrained decoration with majolica medallions , stepped garments and blind arch friezes are already from San Gavino in Sardinia known in Porto Torres . The master builder of Santa Maria del Regno consistently subjected the entire design to her, while the "Lombard style" in the Tuscan churches was only used for decoration. This is how the most Sardinian of all the churches on the island came into being in Ardara.
With its compact, bulky appearance and the return of most of the details to basic cubic forms, the Black Cathedral exudes weight and seriousness, which in this massing go far beyond the contemporary models. The optical and geometric compression of the interior is achieved by the massive masonry columns (the column diameters are larger than those of the capitals ) and the strikingly thick walls.
The relationship between Santa Maria del Regno and Pisan models is revealed in the Pisan stone slabs as abakings, the design of the prospectus with the twin windows, in the strongly stilted round arches above the portals and in the long arched friezes on strongly protruding, mostly simply modeled corbels. The same applies to the arched windows on the apse and the unconventionally designed rectangular windows in the naves (with stepped sloping lights). The master builder almost completely dispensed with the majolica medallions popular in Lombardy so as not to disturb the effect of the black walls.
Inside, the extremely elegant triple pilaster strips on the outer walls, in which the arch lines of the belt arches, cross ribs and blind arcades flow together, deserve special attention . Some capitals are assigned to models from Islamic Spain, for example in the mosque of Cordoba . The strong personality of the architect from Ardara can be seen from the fact that he was the only Sardinian who built other churches on the island ( San Nicola di Trullas , 2nd construction phase of San Pietro and Santa Maria in Bonarcado and San Nicola in Ottana ) and on the Mainland influenced (Rigoli near Pisa and Diecimo near Lucca).
The wooden pulpit with its painted and gilded carvings is one of the most beautiful works of Sardinian artists of the 16th and 17th centuries, who often interpreted older suggestions in a popular way. A Byzantine reverberation can be heard here, which is particularly evident in the mugs with handles with flower tendrils and the double-headed eagle that frames the image of the Madonna. The huge altarpiece from 1515 by the Sardinian- Catalan painter Giovanni Muru, which had been outsourced for restoration work for a long time, is back in the church.
literature
- Rainer Pauli: Sardinia. History culture landscape. Voyages of discovery on one of the most beautiful islands in the Mediterranean . 7th edition. DuMont, Cologne 1990, ISBN 3-7701-1368-3 , ( DuMont documents. DuMont art travel guide ).
Web links
- Ardara (English and Italian)
Coordinates: 40 ° 37 ′ 27.1 ″ N , 8 ° 48 ′ 37.6 ″ E