Le Ricerche deicuerpos santosa Cagliari (1614-1624): i dati archeologici ed epigrafici

Between 1614 and 1624 in Cagliari many excavations were carried out in order to findcuerpos santos, that is the supposed relics of Sardinian martyrs. These were going to be rediscovered in the general Counter-Reformation climate, which strongly promoted the cult of saints, as well as, more specifically, in the background of the controversy between the bishops of Cagliari and Torres about which of them had to be the primate of Sardinia and Corsica. It takes into account the sites of the eastern necropolis of Cagliari (the basilica of S. Saturnino, the area of S. Lucifero and of the so-called church of the SS. Mauro and Lello) and, in a last chapter, the others city’s sites where XVII century’s finds are recorded. A framework about the archaeological situation of each site is first provided, with references to recent finds. Then, there is a detailed chronicle of XVII century excavations, including the full transcript of the unpublished deeds under seal in which finds were registered. Most space is given to epigraphy. Through a collation between the different versions of each inscription, especially those present in the notarial documents, we have tried to establish a reliable text as much as possible and to rehabilitate them after all. In fact these inscriptions, in their time, were misunderstood and interpreted in reference to holiness and martyrdom of the dead, and therefore deemed to be false by Theodor Mommsen at the time of compilation ofCILX,1.