Church of the Conversion of Saint Paul

The church of The Conversion of Saint Paul is located in the lower part of the historic centre of Codrongianos. It is listed among the properties of the Camaldolese monks in 1225 and the first description of the church dates back to the visit of the archbishop Salvatore Alepus in 1553. The building has a T-cross plan, with a cross vault in both the apsal chapel and the transept; the central nave is covered by a trussed timber roof. The bell tower, rebuilt in 1767 with its current Classicist style, has an octagonal section and towers above the residential area. The church has some late Renaissance furniture and decor, such as the Holy Water stoup made in marble at the entrance, the two big altar pieces that show the Conversion of Saint Paul and the Patronage of the Holy Virgin Mary attributed to Baccio Gorini, the painting of Saint Lucy, probably made by Gorini as well, and the polychrome wooden statue of Saint Sebastian. The church was renovated by local workers, as demonstrated by the registration of a payment made as a deposit in 1722 by the administrator Paolo Cubeddu to Juan Pirinu and Salvador Sequi, two masons from Sassari, who worked on the church’s vaults. The works ended in 1729. After the renovation work, the Church of Saint Paul ended up with a single nave covered by a barrel vault with lunettes (tn* semi-circular architectural space) and ribs (tn* an arch of masonry which forms part of the framework on which a vault rests. Ribs generally project from the undersurface of the vault). The apsal chapel and lateral chapels were covered by a barrel vault, which gets steeper near the apse and has higher access arches. In the parish church, one can admire the arrangement of the decorations with a precise sense of symmetry. The complex and continuous frame on which the vault sits, is interrupted at the two sides of the apsal chapel, forming a decoration that resembles the big shelves of the triumphal arch decorated at regular intervals by three seraph heads. The church has been subject to decoration work such as the reconstruction in marble of the main altar, with the integration of stuccoes, and the lateral marble doors, with frames over them containing the paintings of “The Sacred Heart of Jesus” and the “Virgin Mary”, and the new balustrade. Also the marble pulpit of the baptismal font was renovated, as well as the white and “bardiglio” (tn* grey) marble floor of the church, works that were concluded during the last four months of 1897. In the church of Saint Paul you could once see the canvasses donated by the canon Sanna Obino, today located at the Centre of Documentary Research of Codrongianos.

Source: “The church of the Conversion of Saint Paul in Codrongianos, history of a modern building and its decor”. Maria Porcu Gaias, extracted from the Sardinian Franciscan Library year IX 2000, Oristano (in Italian)