Chiesetta Romanica San Michele Arcangelo (Romanesque Church of St Michael Archangel)

The church of St Michael Archangel stands out for its Romanesque architectural style, with ashlars of brown and yellow marl – a kind of clayey rock –, small in size and laid out in a plain shape.

This building is one of the few Romanesque double-nave churches of Sardinia, of which there are about a dozen: in particular, the church of St Michael is the second smallest church, after the church of St Saturno at Ussana.

Though the layout dates back to the second half of the 13th century, in addition to a few quintessentially Romanesque features, you will pick out the Gothic decorative and architectural details, including the octagonal columns on the inside. The style of the church looks remarkably similar to that of the Cathedral of St Pantaleon in Dolianova, part of which was built even in the late 13th century, and that of the Church of St Peter in Villamar of the same age.

Outside, you can look at the lovely façade livened up by corner pilasters and half pilasters, giving an overall poised and restrained appearance to the whole thing.

As you move closer, you will spot the small but precious lintel over the door with five anthropomorphic figures, sculpted in a sequence. Among them, an odd “upside down” figure makes this work unique in its kind on the Medieval sculpture scene of Sardinia, and it has been widely studied and differently interpreted. Some identify it with Lucifer, some with the portrait of a dead person (sculpted in an opposite dimension to that of the living) and some others think it looks like a female dancer performing an acrobatic somersault in a choreographed Sardinian dance scene.