Travel guide

The byzantine and judical age
from 534 to 1326
The architectural styles of Byzantine Sardinia show influences of Oriental
models, although still abiding by the prototype of the martyrium, of crossshaped
plan and featuring a dome at the intersection of a barrel-shaped
vault. Such must have been the original structural configuration of the
major churches of the time, built between the V and VII century: San
Saturnino of Cagliari (restructured in Romanesque forms following its
donation to the Victorine monks in 1089), Sant’Antioco (located in the
namesake town), and San Giovanni of Sinis (Cabras). There is also a
further group of cross-shaped, domed churches of smaller size (e.g. those
at Bonarcado, Simaxis, Nuxis, Cossoine, Iglesias, Ittireddu, Assemini), the
chronology of which is however difficult to ascertain. They were probably
built between the IX and the first decades of the XI century, at a time
when Byzantine Sardinia was evolving into Judical Sardinia. During these
centuries, the local inhabitants represented by the imperial authority of
Constantinople found themselves acting virtually autonomously from
Byzantium, thus promoting themselves to the status of ‘judges’, de facto
Santissima Trinità
Abbey in Saccargia
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