THE CHURCHES

Santa Maria di Bonarcado presents a single-naved hall in the section near the façade, with three naves, marked by arcades resting on piers, inserted where the original apse was probably placed.  A new, east-facing presbyterial area was built in the 13th century, by workers operating in the San Pantaleo of Dolianova during the same years. Interestingly, the apsidal elevation is decorated with characteristic vertical folding partitions, lobed arches and elongated corbels. On the contrary, the façade, marked by three high arcades, and the southern side both refer to the earliest building phase. The whole edifice is built in dark volcanic rock. The construction technique, highlighted by the perfectly squared stone of the most ancient parts, appears less accurate, on the contrary, in the 13th-century enlargements.

The abbey, run in the Middle Ages by the Benedictine Order of Camaldolese monks, was built in the first half of the 12th century and consecrated in 1146-47 in the presence of Barisone, sovereign of the Giudicato of Arborea, according to the Condaghe di Santa Maria di Bonarcado, a medieval written source. In the 13th century, the building underwent substantial changes that gave it its present appearance. Such changes are confirmed by two inscriptions: one of 1242, placed on the apsidal elevation, and the other one of 1268, now no longer identifiable.
Close to the Romanesque Church is a shrine dedicated to the Virgin of Bonacattu. Apparently, the name stems from the medieval term Bonarcanto or Bonacranto, deriving, in turn, from the primitive title of the holy place dedicated to the panachrantos, or Immaculate Virgin. The edifice was built in the 7th-8th centuries upon a Roman thermal facility, reused and later transformed into the eastern arm of the Church; today, it presents a small size and a cruciform plan.

Various restoration works involved the abbey of Santa Maria di Bonarcado during the 20th century. Between 1955 and 1960, the 18th-century onion dome surmounting the present bell tower was destroyed; the spaces set against the southern side of the church and the western side of the bell tower were demolished. In 1978, subsequent works brought to light the foundations of the original semicircular apse, prior to the 13th-century enlargement.  
The cruciform church underwent several renovations, including the addition of the northern neo-Romanesque façade, built in 1933.

Roberto Coroneo, Architettura romanica dalla metà del mille al primo ‘300, Nuoro, 1993. Roberto Coroneo, Renata Serra, Sardegna preromanica e romanica, collana “Patrimonio artistico italiano”, Milano, 2004.Roberto Coroneo, Chiese romaniche della Sardegna. Itinerari turistico-culturali, Cagliari, 2005.