Built by Benedictine monks of the order of St. Victor of Marseille around the 11th century, it is first attested in a papal bull of 1095 by which Pope Urban II confirmed the possessions of the Vittorini in the Giudicato of Cagliari. Located behind the area of the present airport and a short walk from the railway line, it remains the only visible evidence of the first settlement in the Masese territory during the age of the giudicati.
The church of St. Catherine is set in the center of a large farmhouse with a very large courtyard, around which are examples of what must have been the lodgings of the Vittorini monks, who later became “cumbessias” to accommodate pilgrims during festivals. The church has a single-nave layout, with a recently rebuilt bell gable on the façade and a rectangular window above the portal. It originally consisted of a wooden truss roof, given the total absence of the doubleaux arches’ dentures, which might suggest a barrel-vaulted roof. For the construction of the Romanesque church, made of heterogeneous masonry, ashlars dating from the Roman period were used, evidence of which is also revealed in the portal entrance. Of the original layout of the church is preserved the apse of wide and low proportions, which, although much remodeled, must have consisted of a cone-shaped pitch roof with appropriately arranged beams. The entrance sill and floor also date back to the earliest planting. Behind the apse, traces of the foundations of the early church were found. All around the structure there is evidence of Roman times. Corinthian capitals, bases and column fragments.
The statute of the saint is kept throughout the year in the town’s parish church named after St. Sebastian, and the feast dedicated to St. Catherine of Alexandria takes place on Pentecost Sunday and the following two days. The simulacrum of the saint is carried in procession to the small country church where masses and celebrations are held in her honor.
