The country church was built in the locality of Sa Sedda de Basiloccu in 1669 with donations from the married couple Grissante Satta and Giovanna Maria Dessì.

The building has a square façade made of grey granite topped by a small bell gable under which an arched doorway opens.

The room consists of a single nave punctuated by three pointed arches in red trachyte, and is covered by a wooden gabled roof. The paving is in terracotta and the floor visibly rises from the entrance towards the altar.

An ancient wooden altar is preserved in the presbytery, the lower part of which rests on a masonry base. The upper part, on the other hand, consists of a niche decorated with gilded flowers, which houses the small statue of St. Anthony with the Infant Jesus in his arms, embellished at the sides by two twisted columns with floral motifs and above by a wooden cornice resembling the battlements of a castle.

Behind the altar, not completely against the wall, a niche can be glimpsed in which the statue of the saint was probably originally placed. On either side of the apse are two simple rectangular windows.

The festivities dedicated to St Anthony the Abbot take place on 13 June and the third Sunday in September, as was the custom in ancient times, at the end of the period of agricultural work and before the shepherds in the village set off for the plains for the winter transhumance of the flocks.

Religious festivals often had a close connection with the changing of the seasons, the agrarian times of sowing and harvesting, and symbolic vestiges of pagan fertility-propitiatory rites remained in them.

In the large enclosed area are the recently built cumbessias, used by the faithful during the novena period before the feast. Currently, the facilities are used during the summer to organise fun and entertainment activities for the children and young people of the village.

Text by Laura Melis

From Via Lazio 21 to Church of Sant’Antonio da Padova link for path plotted on

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