Recorded in 1119 under the name Santa Lucia di Civita, it stood a century before the foundation of the Pisan Castle at the mercantile port settlement of Cagliari, then called Bagnaria. The church, granted at that date to the monks of St. Victor of Marseilles settled in the abbey of St. Saturn, was part of an articulated monumental system, a remarkable place by the sea, at the time near the present line of arcades. Of its medieval phase we do not know its exact form, perhaps modified as a result of the urban redesign of the lower area of the Lapola district, in the early 14th century reformed by Aragonese initiative through a grid of orthogonal streets. The monument, now reduced to the right chapels and part of the presbytery, testifies to the radical reconstruction datable to the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Other churches in the city, including Santa Restituta and Santa Caterina, were rebuilt in those years with similar forms. The numerous remakes of furnishings and flooring, highlighted by the ongoing archaeological campaign, confirm the church’s cultural centrality; the Museum of Sant’Eulalia preserves part of the rich patrimony of works of art, marble furnishings and silverware, frequently donated and commissioned to important artists such as Scipione Aprile (1600) or Giovanni Battista Franco (1802). The monument’s fortunes gradually declined during the 19th century.
Despite minor damage caused by bombing in 1943, it was intentionally demolished in 1947 at the mine to obtain state funding dedicated to post-war reconstruction. The Reconstruction Plan called for the partial demolition of the church and the widening of the narrow Via Sardegna and a square, echoing some of the directions of the Master Plan drawn up by architect Gaetano Cima in 1858.
Since 2002 the area of Santa Lucia has been the subject of a comprehensive recovery program. Systematic archival research is restoring new dignity to the late Renaissance architecture; the ongoing archaeological campaign is highlighting the plan of the church and recording new data on the monument, including floors from various periods, an obliterated well, burials near the altar, a crypt and a “cistern.”
