Saint Anthony from Padova and its Monastery
The church, which stands in the area called Chirriu de Cuvventu[i], historical part of Ploaghe, was consecrated in 1651 and given to Capuchin friars. On the left side there is the entrance to what were the service buildings of the church and, on its right side, the ancient outer arcade (portaria), with its arches walled, inside which the friars provided a shelter and assistance to pilgrims and beggars.
Inside the church, which has a single nave, on the left side you can see three chapels, dedicated to Madonna of Rimedio, St. Francis from Assisi and Crucifix (added after 1736 with the name of Saint Mary of Mount Carmelo).
Very valuable are the wooden handcrafts, already seen in other Franciscan churches, that is to say the two niches built, on the left side, in the chapel pillars, the tabernacle, the wood pulpit and choir, the altars and a wood piece of furniture in the sacristy, built in 1816 by friar Serafino from Sassari entrusted by father Antonio Giuseppe from Ploaghe.
|
|
|
|
Under the chapels, the central nave and the presbytery are the sepulchral rooms. In the last restoring works during ’80s of the past century, they found a trapdoor which, through a short seven steps staircase, led to a crypt used as sepulchral hall.
The building of the attached Monastery, between 1652 and 1659, has to deal with that ecclesiastical renewing process which spread in Sardinia after Trento Council. The communities of Capuchin friars had to live inside or somewhere near the towns, take care of the spiritual life of the people, both peasants and nobles, and live with alms and donations. Financial helps, and the donation of land or buildings, had the goal to build up churches and monasteries following the rules of poor architecture.
Thus, in January, 1649, Capitolo decided to built up in Ploaghe a Monastery for Capuchin friars in the area where was set the church of Saint Anthony from Padova: a verdant place, still uninhabited, and full of gardens. On 9th May, 1652, as it is read on a slab fixed on the inner church wall, with an official ceremony with civil and religious authority from Ploaghe, the fundacion, that is to say the legal possession of the building, took place. The works slowly went on, because of the plague, which, brought by a Catalan boat which had docked in Alghero harbour, quickly spread all over the island going on to 1656. The building of the Monastery was finished in 1659 thanks to the contribution of faithful people and rich legacies. The institution shortly became noviciate and study seat for the new friars. So, during the eighteenth century they built up a second dormitory. The Monastery, closed in 1866 after the repressive laws promulgated by Sardinian States towards religious order, was kept by the Public Property, which partially gave it to the Common and partially to the Province as barracks for the King Carabinieri.
With a Town Council order, dated 25th May, 1868, we get to know some properties which belonged to the closed Monastery and given for rent: il mandorleto posto nella contrada di Lodè in base al prezzo di L. 100; il vigneto attiguo al quartiere del prato del convento in base a L. 75; l’orticello detto dei novizi in base a L. 15[ii].
The rooms belonging to the Common were afterwards used as jail and, later, as primary school.
The jail premises were abandoned on 30th September, 1964, while the barracks ones on 30th May, 1981 and in 1987 the Province granted the rent of its premises to Ploaghe Common for 99 years.
Later, in years closer to us, at the end of the eighties, the restoring of the entrance passage has let us find a parlour and three stone seats, two side one and the last in the front of the church, which, with the stone sink and the beautiful well dug in the middle of the garden makes us imagine, going back in time, everyday life of Capuchin in ’600.
In the month of November, 2003, the Town Council, because of the plane to reintroduce the old place-names in the town of Ploaghe, putting into practice the law 26/97 about “Promotion and Valorisation of Sardinian Culture and Language”, made fix some terracotta plaque, hand-wrought, with the ancient place-name in Logudorese language, Ploaghe idiom, in the district which took its origin from this important building: su Chirriu de Cuvventu.
