Rural sanctuaries

Busachi, Santuario e Muristenes di Sant'Anna - Photo from PNRR Rural Architecture

Alongside the church intended as a single monument, Sardinian rural religious architecture expresses a unique collective settlement form: rural sanctuaries surrounded by novenaries and temporary reception facilities.

The Sanctuary: expression of popular piety
Unlike the great cathedrals or major basilicas (whose title is granted directly by the Holy See), the Sanctuary was mostly spontaneously born from the popular will, configuring itself as the most authentic expression of the piety of the humble social classes. As emphasized in theological reflections on the subject, the sanctuary combines the supermonumental dimension with the community experience of the “people of God”, often finding its origin in a prodigious event, in an apparition, in the custody of a relic or in the memory of a servant of God.

The novenaries and the architecture of the cumbessias or muristenes
Novenaries are places where people from different countries gather for nine days before the religious holiday, gathering around the sanctuary in the open countryside. The architectural and social fulcrum of these settlements are the cumbessias (or muristenes): small single-room rooms arranged in rows around the church, intended to accommodate families during the festival period.
As evidenced by the studies of Maria Grazia Mele, the spread of these novenary sanctuaries in Sardinia contrasts with the scarce presence of martyrdom sanctuaries or sanctuaries linked to epiphanic phenomena, reflecting a twofold drive: on the one hand, the church's policy aimed at revitalizing the offices and the control of the territory, and on the other, a deep spontaneous devotion. Between the 17th and 18th centuries, in particular, there was a strong incentive to build muristenes also to repopulate and guard abandoned rural areas.
In the past, the management of these temporary accommodations took mixed forms: there were those owned by the church (managed by a prosecutor of the parish priest) and those owned privately. Life within the novenaries followed strict codes of coexistence and community traditions.
There were internal novenants, who resided permanently in the premises for all nine days; those who participated only in daytime functions, the so-called coricantes, who took part exclusively in night functions (a figure that later became extinct also following church measures).
This extraordinary “long party”, studied by anthropologists such as Clara Gallini, represented the suspension of tiring daily life in the fields and the culminating moment for strengthening community ties, inheriting — Christianizing them — ancient cults of fecundity and long-standing settlement roots. Today, novenaries and rural churches continue to live not only through the devotion of residents and pilgrims, but also as privileged destinations for slow and conscious cultural tourism.

Update

6/11/2026 - 11:15