2019 Essays

Chiesa di San Michele, Cagliari

Escobar, Jesús

The Jesuit novitiate church of San Michele (1687-97; façade completed 1705) is considered one of the finest baroque buildings in Cagliari, yet it has a sixteenth-century pre-history about which little is known. The Society of Jesus arrived in 1559 in Sardinia, where their first foundation was a college in Sassari. Five years earlier, Pope Gregory XIII had approved the building of a novitiate on the island. In 1584, the Jesuits decided to locate their Sardinian novitiate in Cagliari and the future San Michele began to take shape on the site of an oratory dedicated to saints Michael and Aegidius. My intention in studying this monument was to learn more about the church that came to be replaced by the new one. Yet, as is the case with many buildings realized over long time spans in other Spanish viceroyalties, San Michele’s early history remains elusive.