«...per dar mayor prospettiva a l’Iglesia». La strada con fondale in Sardegna in età moderna = …per dar mayor prospettiva a l’Iglesia». The Road with a Backdrop in Sardinia in the Early Modern Age

Marco Cadinu

2023-01-01

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Abstract

Throughout the 15th century and into the 17th, important renewals of road designs were experimented with, increasingly aimed at emphasizing in perspective the monumental dimension of architecture carefully placed as a scenic backdrop. In the wake of a long series of experiences, examples are recorded in Sardinia that start from the evolution of the model of the rectilinear street with divergent fronts, experimented in the mid-15th century in the re-founding of the convent of San Domenico in Cagliari, promoted on funding from the King of Spain, whose urbanistic works on the outline are completed by 1505. The resulting triangular square, with its relevant perspective qualities, inspires numerous new designs in the areas pertaining to the Confraternities of Santa Croce, whose church and house layouts from the late sixteenth century onward are usually coordinated with new urban expansions. In Cagliari in the declining seventeenth century a further project is implemented at the new site of San Michele dei Gesuiti, magnified by means of a second new scenic façade placed at the apex of a road drawn from the entrance to the neighborhood. New documentation describes some of the steps leading to an extensive expropriation of private houses, with the declared intention of controlling the road layout in its regularity and «…per dar mayor prospettiva a l’Iglesia».