1200-1300 – It was built by the Benedictines in the Romanesque style over a sacred well from the Nuragic period, the entrance to which is located inside the church. It has a single nave surmounted by a row of small arches and a bell gable. Perhaps it was part of a Benedictine convent of which no trace remains. It was almost certainly originally dedicated to St. Benedict of Norcia.
The double-arched (cornice) and pointed arches, which foreshadow the Gothic style, allow the building to be dated with certainty between 1200 and 1300, more likely at the end of the 1200s, when churches in pure Romanesque style underwent transformations due to the first contact with Gothic forms. The small church was built using trachytic stone and sandstone, which is easy to work, perhaps brought from the not-so-distant quarries of Serrenti. In the absence of a certain date of construction, it can be said that the little church could be an expression of both the judges of Cagliari, the Pisans, the Arborensi and the Aragonese, who alternated during the 13th century in the possession of the territory of Segariu. Inside is the entrance to a sacred well of Nuragic age whose steps go under the altar, where the cistern is located.
1479 – In the year of the birth of the crown of Spain, the Spaniards and before that the Aragonese brought to Sardinia the cult of St. Anthony of Padua, a Franciscan, who was born in Lisbon in 1195 and died at the age of 36 on the outskirts of Padua on June 13, 1231; thanks to his many prodigies he was proclaimed a saint only 11 months after his death.
1516 – Tradition has it that the village of Ovodda purchased a statue of St. Anthony, but the yoke of oxen carrying it, while passing the place where the little church stands, stopped and could not be restarted. Seeing all attempts futile, the town of Ovodda gave permission to leave the statue in the small church, which has since been dedicated to St. Anthony of Padua. The wooden statue kept in the parish is believed to be the same one given from Ovodda.
1584 – A restoration was carried out at that time and the sacristy, front porch and two side porches were probably added. In fact, ecclesiastical architecture with loggias is a typology conceived in the late 1500s and developed until the late 1700s. In many country churches of that period, porches were built to protect church fixtures and pilgrims who stopped to pray from the weather. The rebuilding was probably carried out, after many years of neglect, by the Franciscan Friars Minor, who took over from the Benedictines of St. Victor, who left the island in the mid-1400s.
F.C. Casula, in his dictionary writes: “the porch and sacristy are from the 17th-18th centuries.”
1772 – In another restoration, the masonry was raised and the canopy redone. Probably, the raised part is what we currently see plastered on the outside.
1922 – New restoration of the church, where the roof was redone with wooden boards and the interior plaster, thanks to popular offerings, and it was paved with cement tiles at the expense of Salvatorangelo Carta, by grace received. The altar, which no longer exists, was redone in marble at Simbula Francesco’s expense by Cagliari marble worker Serreli Carlo and mason Curreli Francesco. A plaster statue of St. Anthony was purchased at the expense of Giuseppe Palmas, called for this reason, by some, Santu Antoneddu Pràmasa, since then it has been inside the small church.
1934 – On March 14 the little church is listed as a national monument after an inspection by Cagliari’s director of national monuments, Angelo Piccardo. Until the 1950s, from personal recollections, a palio was run in the vicinity of the church during the June 13 festival. V. Angius also mentions it in the mid-19th century, in the part about Sardinia, in Casalis’s dictionary.
