Codrongianos - Basilica di Saccargia

The "Basilica della Santissima Trinità di Saccargia" is probably the most important and renowned Romanesque church in the island of Sardinia.

The construction was commissioned by the "giudice" of Torres, a powerful judge. The church was completed and got consecrated in 1116. It was built, over the ruins of a pre-existing monastery, on the floorplan of a "Tau Cross" just like the neighbouring "San Michele di Salvenero".

The porch is some decades younger (1180/1200).

An abbey was founded by Camaldolese monks. The order had been founded about 100 years earlier by Saint Romuald in Camaldoli (Tuscany).

Legends tell, that the name "Saccargia" is connected to "sa acca argia" - "speckled cow", as a cow was found here praying on its knees. Here are the cows.

The church was abandoned in the 16th century, the monastery fell in ruins, so this was a perfect place to carve in a graffito.

Nobody chose the surface of the black volcanic basalt, the vandals carved names and dates into the white limestones of the porch.