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Sardegna

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Vivere la campagna

Retables

In the churches of the province of Middle Campidano, retables represent an important evidence of pictorial art in the territory. A retable is a late-Gothic altar-piece of Spanish derivation, with a mostly vertical wooden structure, composed by several tables painted in tempera featuring the locally worshipped Saints. Retables date back to 1500; yet, when in the rest of Italy the period coincides with the full Renaissance, in Sardinia, under the Spanish domination, Renaissance innovations arrived but slowly, mixing themselves to the features of Sardinian and Iberian culture, thus assuming very specific characteristics. A few retables are kept at the National Picture Gallery of Cagliari, as the most ancient one of Sant’Eligio, coming from Sanluri Nevertheless, lots of churches have preserved what was once their most precious work, such as the Retable of Villamar , dated 1518, by Pietro Cavaro, Master of Castelsardo’s Retable in Tuili ,by Antioco Mainas, in Lunamatrona and Sanluri, besides retables by anonymous artists in Barumini , Collinas and Villanovafranca.