The church can be found in the Villanova neighbourhood, at the top of a vast staircase overlooking the piazza of the same name.
The air raids in 1943 seriously damaged the ancient Gothic-Catalan church dating back to the XV-XVI centuries, built on the wishes of the Dominican monks on the spot of the ancient Benedictine church of Sant’Anna.
The current-day building was designed by the architect Raffaello Fagnoni and built between 1952 and 1954.
On the harsh facade, produced in white limestone from Bonaria are three narrow portals that open up and are overhung by a ribbon window and flat end plate. It has a single-nave layout with presbytery, and is articulated by reinforced concrete ribs that reflect the Gothic architectural features of the previous church.
Numerous pieces of furniture that were in the church have been lost; however, some of the canvases of the Rosary altarpiece from the XVII century have been saved: the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Coronation of the Virgin, the Crucification and the Resurrection.
Remaining intact from the ancient church, known as the lower church, is the chapel of the Madonna of the Holy Rosary which is a part of the crypt in the current-day church and home to the board with the Madonna with Child by Alvaro Pirez, currently at Cagliari’s National Picture Gallery, and the quadrangular cloister.
The Western and Southern sides of the cloister, date back to the first half of the XV century, and have Late Gothic shapes and decorations. They feature a series of gabled elevation ribbed cross vaults with delicately decorated key jewels and hanging capitals, whose decorative repertoire includes phyto-animal shaped subjects.
The north and eastern sides, on the other hand, and the adjacent chapels, date back to the late Renaissance reconstruction in 1598, on the wishes of Philip II of Spain. The eastern side stretches across two rows of round arches with wooden vaults. The north side, the only one hit by the air-raids, was later rebuilt.
Some of the works in the cloister worth mentioning include the boards of Saints Peter and Paul, attributed to Pietro dating from the XVI century and parts of a dismantled altar piece, currently on display at Cagliari’s National Gallery.
