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San Lucifero: "underground church"

The Church of San Lucifero is a short distance away from the Basilica of San Saturnino, in the area used as a necropolis during the early Christian era (fig. 1). It was built between 1646 and 1682 above where it was thought the tomb of the saint was located.

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Fig. 1 - Plan of the rooms below the church of St. Lucifer in relation to the Church of S. Saturnino (from MUREDDU et alii 1988, p. 156, table 12 ).

Below the seventeenth-century church, there are the partially preserved remains of three funerary spaces, known as "underground churches" of saints Lussorio, Rude and Lucifero. They are the only remaining evidence, although their original form has been transformed, of the many buildings which the chronicles of the seventeenth century spoke of. In one of these buildings, in 1623, the alleged burial place of Bishop Lucifero of Cagliari was identified, marked by three inscriptions (on whose reliability there is, however, some doubt); the church we see today, with the chancel floor higher where the tomb is, was designed to stand above it.

The best-preserved area is the so-called "second underground church" (fig. 2), which still has eleven arcosolia (from the Latin "arcosolium" meaning "vaulted tomb") on its walls, called "chapels" by the seventeenth century authors (fig. 3), which contained up to five neatly superimposed burials (fig. 4). On one side there is an opening to a smaller quadrangular room, with three niches and a sarcophagus, the "capilla maior" (fig. 5) as stated by the seventeenth-century chronicles. The floor dates back to the restoration during the 50s of the twentieth century, but originally many graves were dug here, made of bricks and sarcophagi, some in lead, with marble inscriptions or with mosaics at floor level. The flattened barrel vault dates back to the seventeenth century.

Its primary use dates to between the fourth and seventh centuries.

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Fig. 2 - Second underground church, interior (photo by Unicity S.p.A.).
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Fig. 3 - Second underground church, arcosolium (photo by Unicity S.p.A.).
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Fig. 4 - Second underground church, detail of an arcosolium with the accommodation for the superimposed burials (photo by Unicity S.p.A.).
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Fig. 5 - Second underground church, the “capilla maior” (photo by Unicity S.p.A.).





Bibliografia

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