The Church of Santa Lucia belongs to the real estate holdings of the Umberto e Margherita Foundation, which was created by the transformation of the Asilo Istituto Umberto e Margherita. The Asylum saw its first beginnings at the end of the 19th century, when Monsignor Prinetti purchased the property that housed in the 1600s the cloistered convent of the Poor Clares, who had arrived from Barcelona with the permission of Pope Paul III. The building has architectural lines referable to the Gothic-Aragonese style, imported to Sardinia in the first half of the 14th century. The church has a salient facade, very essential, devoid of ornamentation. A simple portal opens to it, surmounted by a plugged oculus. From the scenic Piazzetta Mundula, close to the church, it is possible to see the back of the building, which, like the neighboring buildings, rests directly on the rock, overhanging Regina Elena Avenue below. From this location it is also possible to see the quadrangular turret, a remnant of the Pisan fortifications, within which the church sacristy was carved out. From the first installation as time went on in the 1700s the community came to number as many as 40 nuns; the convent took special care of the education and training of the young women of the Cagliari nobility. But the real social evolution took place in 1888 when, under pressure from a “neighborhood committee,” the Asylum was founded, with the name it still bears today: Umberto e Margherita. It was intended for the education of the poor children of Castello. The church, in Aragonese Gothic style, has an initial layout dating back to 1539; it has always experienced a perfect symbiosis with the activities housed by the rest of the structure; thus, today the Umberto and Margherita Primary School, operating within the structure, with its young pupils takes care of the Monument. The important historical period that sees together St. Lucy’s Church and successive activities in the rest of the property, highlights how the Monument can stand as a candidate to represent an exemplary path of redefinition of cultural and social functions where in particular children’s activities represent a vital intergenerational reading of history.
