The Villa Sant’Orsola complex, which includes the villa, park and aristocratic church, stands in the Sassari countryside on the route to Porto Torres. The complex was part of a vast agricultural estate in the possession of the Marquis Cugia di Sant’Orsola family as early as the 15th century. In the second half of the 18th century by Marquis Andrea Cugia the park was planted, the villa enlarged and the church built. The church building has an unusual shape in the island’s artistic landscape: it has the plan of an octagon inscribed in an oval, is covered by a ribbed dome with lantern, and communicates with the vaulted sacristy behind. The facade is gabled on a high plinth; the portal is architraved and surmounted by a broken tympanum, which houses the family coat of arms. Inside, it is possible to admire the altar of exquisite 18th-century style, placed frontally to the entrance. In the adjacent sacristy is a plaque commemorating a passage from the marquis’ will dated Aug. 7, 1785, in which the founder donated the church and the relic of the saint, which he had brought from Rome and set in a silver reliquary, with the requirement that it be displayed for the devotion of the faithful on the feast day of St. Ursula, which is celebrated on Oct. 21.
