San Carlo Borromeo Church

"A charming church dedicated to San Carlo Borromeo, at the end of Via Agostino Tagliafico."

carlo “Avatar” tronconi

"You can't miss a visit to this church. The history is also very beautiful."

Gianpaolo

"The building poses a significant attribution problem because the final result is decidedly composite and would suggest a rather early date for the arrival of Neoclassicism in Sardinia, brought about by the same people who imported Piedmontese Rococo.
A document from the State Archives of Cagliari confirms that in 1738, the military engineer Augusto Della Vallea, who was working at the time on the new urban plan of Carloforte, also built the church. It certainly was not the current parish church, as a 1741 drawing, showing the general plan with an index of the main houses, states in the list of lots under point 11: "site where the church is to be built." Therefore, at this date, the church of San Carlo did not yet exist, and it is difficult to determine which building was referred to in the 1738 dispatch: whether a temporary chapel or, more likely, the church of the Novelli Innocenti.
The hypothesis of a later construction based on drawings left by Della Vallea should also be ruled out, as this would imply that a personality such as his, so steeped in late Baroque culture, adopted a design for the façade so closely aligned with the Neoclassical model as to represent an unthinkable stylistic precursor, difficult at that time.
Some stylistic details recall the University Palace of Cagliari, offering strong evidence for attributing the work to the same designer, engineer Saverio Belgrano di Famolasco, who, during his stay in Sardinia between 1761 and 1769, was present in Carloforte on several occasions for urban development and fortification works.
The church was reopened for worship in 1775, six years after Belgrano's return to Turin. Stylistic inconsistencies indicate a possible alteration to the project in the absence of the architect, and in fact, through archival documents regarding the work in Sardinia of another military engineer, Francesco Daristo, the parish church of San Carlo was included among his works dated 1773.
The façade is crowned by a tympanum and is divided into two orders by a projecting entablature, separated by simple pilasters framing the portal and the rose window. The interior, a single nave with three chapels on each side, is covered by a barrel vault and is traversed by a robust, projecting entablature crowning the Corinthian order. The element closest to the Baroque aesthetic is the original bell tower, offset from the façade.
Source: Sardegnaturismo"

Simone Usala