Escolca

Escolca lies at the southern foot of the Giara di Serri, where the Sarcidano meets the Trexenta. The village’s heritage includes the sixteenth-century church of Santa Cecilia, the basalt nuraghe Mogurus and the rural settlement of San Simone, about ten kilometres away.

Why it matters

Escolca’s history is reflected in both its central parish and the surrounding landscape. The village is documented from the eleventh century, while its countryside preserves nuragic remains and the traces of San Simone, an abandoned hamlet associated with a local Pentecost tradition.

What to notice

Santa Cecilia, built on a raised square, is a late-Gothic church at the centre of the village. Nuraghe Mogurus, a single-towered basalt structure, stands on the slopes of the Giara. At San Simone, the rural church is surrounded by remains of roughly fifty mud-and-straw houses built around the earlier nuragic settlement of Su Nuraxi Mannu.

Context and history

Escolca first appears in eleventh-century records as a villa in the curatoria of Siurgus within the Giudicato of Cagliari. Local tradition links the abandonment of San Simone to an epidemic; survivors are said to have moved to Escolca and donated their lands. The annual San Simone feast is held around Pentecost, and a procession associated with the settlement also calls at Mandas. The Ministry of Culture inventory records two churches in the municipality: Santa Cecilia and the rural church of San Simone.