San Salvatore di Sinis in western Sardinia is a modest yet hospitable “town” if you will. It comprises a dusty central square surrounded by sas cumbessias, side abutting single-story dwellings, that remain conspicuously closed most of the year. The setting is one of an Old West prairie village wielding a ghost town ambiance. Inasmuch, San Salvatore conjures up the American Southwest with an aura that the guest rode in and his fate suddenly became perilous and uncertain. In the 1960s, deductively, the town served as a set for some low budget Italian-made “Western” films, a then emerging genre to be forged: the Spaghetti Western.
San Salvatore is located en route to Sardinia’s often visited Spiaggia di Is Arutas—the name derived from a term meaning grains in the native Sardo language. Distinguished by its pearly white, quartz pebble sand, the shoreline’s surface is likened to grains of rice. While most travelers to the Sinis peninsula region flock to its beaches, San Salvatore offers more than libation. A revealing look at millenniums of life on the island, itself an ancient land mass, can be fetched in San Salvatore.
Driving past a broken line of sandstone dwellings, discolored and shuttered wood openings, unkempt foliage, and red clay roofs of varying height, one might overlook San Salvatore. The strada bianca, or dirt road driveway, leading into the town is otherwise at the building row’s end. Despite the earth tone palette, and depending on the season, pleasing hues of weathered blue paint flit with the open sky, and bright flowers of a yellow-red spectrum illuminate the gritty ghostly aura giving the town an invitingly friendly feel.
While San Salvatore is the scene of an uninhabited prairie town today, barring a few tourists blithely shooting photographs, and the occasional locals hosting a novena, the site hides a much bigger story.
Accommodation for Pilgrims
The village dwellings of San Salvatore, originally built in the 1600–1700s, are prime examples of sas cumbessias (defined as accommodations for pilgrims) found scattered about Sardinia. The small abodes here were built around a church placed on top of a hypogeum (literally meaning underground) dating to the early Roman Republic.
Sas Cumbessias – Dwellings used during festivals, pilgrimages and traditional novena events. The sas cumbessias of San Salvatore, small and unadorned, were built to meet the needs of the journeying faithful. New construction ceased in the mid-19th century, roughly 1830–1870s, leaving the present “Western” look.
Church of San Salvatore
At the heart of the village is a church dedicated to Jesus the Savior, i.e. San Salvatore. The Chiesetta (little church) di San Salvatore, with hypogeum beneath its floor, has been a place of worship for millennia starting as a prehistoric sanctuary carved into the rock. The present rectangular building measures roughly 43½ x 31½ feet (or 13,3 x 9,6 meters) with its entrance facing northeast and shaded by a small portico. The interior is divided into two naves, or congregation halls, with the left side occupying the presbytery beneath a wood vaulted ceiling and stair leading down to the hypogeum. The nave at the right serves as the sacristy and is framed by an arcaded appendage to the main structure.
Underground Vault
Below ground level and the church floor of Chiesetta di San Salvatore, constructed in brick, sandstone and mortar, is a cruciform series of rooms referred to as the hypogeum. A water well at its center has served for centuries both as a place of worship and a source of water through the ages. The area of San Salvatore has been sacred since the Nuragic (Neolithic) period, having satiated civilizations for more than 4,000 years.
In the Early Roman Republic, 4th century BC, christianity was just being explored. The various uses of the well have been preserved in fable since its first inhabitants, rooted in the lore of tradition and legend. Extant today, Punic (264–146 BC) and Roman (510 BC–476 AD) etchings can be seen on the hypogeum walls. These illustrations and depictions are striking, further affirming the structure’s purpose and date.
On a semicircular wall, facing the stairs, is an early representation of the “sacred conversation.” This scene recognizes five characters identified by name above their depictions. On the left standing side by side are Luna, a goddess and symbol of faith, and Venus the mother, goddess of love and beauty. Next to Venus is Mars the father, a symbol of peace, and flying to his right is Amor, or Eros, a symbol of love and unity, holding a veil symbolizing the union between Mars and Venus. Finally, there is Musa, or Moses, teacher of literature, science, and the arts, sitting on a large seat fastening a sandal and gazing outward from the scene.
In the same room, immediately to the right of the entrance, a scene of Hercules’ twelve labors is depicted. The hero is shown bare-chested strangling the fierce Nemean lion, whose head is hidden from the viewer’s sight. The technique and representational style of the markings match that of the sacred conversation. There is also a depiction of a writing tablet located above the sacred conversation identifying Roman sodalitates (religious brotherhoods). Its inscription “SCHOLA” indicates a gathering place for collegia (societies), and implies that the hypogeum was a meeting place in the Late Roman Period (250–450 AD).
Barefoot Race
On the first Saturday in September begins Corsa degli Scalzi, a festival bringing San Salvatore to life. The Corsa degli Scalzi (meaning barefoot race) ensues from the city of Cabras seven kilometers away. A procession of hundreds of men in white tunics called Is Curridoris runs along a mostly unpaved route towards San Salvatore. The runners carry a wooden statue, or simulacrum (effigy), of their patron saint, and the town’s namesake.
Novenas – Devotional festivals. While the village of San Salvatore comes to life during the Corsa degli Scalzi festival, other novenas take place here throughout the year. San Salvatore is frequented by farmers during the planting season in autumn and the wheat harvest in summer. The novena is a Christian devotional activity, repeated for nine consecutive days, that consists mainly in reciting prayers (such as the rosary) to God, a saint or the deceased. The term derives from the medieval Latin novenus meaning ninth.
Legend holds that the annual Corsa degli Scalzi initiated from a pirate attack by Saracens (Arabs) in 1506, in which the faithful of Cabras were compelled to save their hallowed statue, whisking it away to a hiding place in San Salvatore. As the dust from the runners made the invaders believe they were seeing a large advancing army, the island was saved avoiding any conflict. Festivities surrounding Corsa degli Scalzi persist for nine-plus days while traditional Sardinian music featuring launeddas, a woodwind instrument made of three pipes, the local vernaccia wine variety, and a plentiful fish of the region, muggine, are enjoyed.
Movie Set
A style all their own, production of Spaghetti Western films flourished in Italy in the mid-1960s. Perhaps most famous of the genre are those directed by Sergio Leone, for example: A Fistful of Dollars (1964, Per un Pugno di Dollari in Italian) starring Clint Eastwood. Spaghetti Westerns attained international celebrity despite their low budgets, interjected Italian dialogue, and copious use of sound dubbing. While shooting took place primarily in Spain (Almería and the Tabernas Desert) and at Cinecittà Studios in Rome, a few attempts were made at filming on the island of Sardinia.
San Salvatore’s ambiance of the American southwest emanates from a period of Spanish domination on the island. Its barren sunny landscape and dusty alleys are brambled with succulents redolent of both regions. San Salvatore has forever been wild territory posturing as civil. Having existed quite simply as a watering hole for more than 3,000 years, today it seems at a standoff with the American cowboy film.
In the early 1960s, the Sardinian based Corronca Company invested in San Salvatore by constructing a film set specifically for Westerns, replete with a saloon, a fake well, a hanging gallows, and a sheriff’s office with jail. While painted white, all coalesced with the existing mud, brick and plaster sas cumbessias and Chiesetta di San Salvatore. Investors anticipated that low production costs and the stark environs would beckon film producers. Rumors prevail about which Spaghetti Western film scenes were shot here. However, only a handful of truths exist. What remains today of the town is an entanglement of tourism folklore.
Ironically, the first of only two movies substantially produced in San Salvatore in the 1960s was of the science fiction genre. Titled 2+5 Missione Hydra (1965, its English title Star Pilot) and shot by Pietro Francisci, the movie was staged in part in the town, but largely filmed in the surrounding countryside to capture what was cast as the fictitious landing site of a spaceship from the Hydra constellation. Furthermore, the final scenes of the film were shot in front of the picturesque seaside arch of S’Archittu some 25 km north of Is Arutas and San Salvatore. Despite the movie’s limited success, it is credited with introducing the location to other filmmakers of the time.
In the 1968 movie Garter Colt (Giarrettiera Colt in Italian), by director Gian Andrea Rocco, San Salvatore portrayed a town in the American southwest, saloon and dusty square included. Starring Nicoletta Machiavelli and Claudio Camaso (a.k.a. Claudio Volontè), Garter Colt was filmed almost entirely in the “Western” town. Despite its quirky production qualities, and lackluster success, Garter Colt has survived as a cult classic.
Garter Colt is further validated by the 1990s bred film producer Quentin Tarantino. He called Garter Colt a source of inspiration and defined the movie as a masterpiece of its genre—perhaps implying a combination of both Spaghetti Western and cult classic (i.e. its non-linear storytelling, a trademark of Tarantino’s style). Furthermore, Tarantino named the protagonist in his Kill Bill series Arlene Machiavelli, a tribute to his admiration for the actress Nicoletta Machiavelli. Garter Colt is moreover notable as the first and one of the rare Spaghetti Westerns to feature a woman as the lead character.
Production of the movie Per 30 Dollari al Mese (For 30 Dollars a Month) about a ranger named Texas started in San Salvatore in 1966, under the direction of Mario Gariazzo and was financed by the Sardinian company Arborea Film. However, production ceased when bankrupted reportedly due to the costs of transporting materials, actors and crew to the site. Three years later the movie was revived and renamed Dio Perdoni la mia Pistola (1969, God Will Forgive My Pistol in English). Directed by Leopoldo Savona and produced by Ambrosiana Cinematografica, Dio Perdoni la mia Pistola was completed in the studios of Cinecittà.
Last Stand
Lastly in 1967, with locations in and around the town, San Salvatore was employed for the movie Django Kills Softly (1967, its Italian title Bill il Taciturno, taciturn as the silent one) by producer Alberto Puccini and director Massimo Pupillo. Django Kills Softly was the town’s last stand as a Western film set. Again, parts of the movie were filmed in Cinecittà.
Vanquished
Dating as far back as the Nuragic era, from 1700–700 BC, with its pagan sanctuary, San Salvatore would later become a Roman temple, from 27 BC – 476 AD. Arabic inscriptions from the medieval period note that the Moors, from 711–1492 AD, used to make frequent incursions into the area. The village also became a religious center in the Dark Ages, from 476–1000 AD, and only after the postwar period, in the 1960s, did it take on the appearance of a frontier town.
In 1991, an arson attack destroyed the movie set saloon. According to locals, it was out of place here. In the blaze, all materials stored inside, including movie posters and stage photos, also vanished. Since the Roman Conquest, in 283 BC, Sardinia often fell prey to passing pirates and marauders, owing to its strategic position in the middle of the Mediterranean sea. Once again the sacred site fell prey to pirates. Thieves and looters poached the remaining movie set and stage memorabilia.
While picturesque with its mud brick sas cumbessias, 17th century chiesetta, and fugacious set constructions, one can only presume that San Salvatore was the location for a movie by the legendary Sergio Leone. Truth be told, it never was.
Revival
In recent years, however, San Salvatore has experienced a new wave of film set popularity. Movies such as The Legend of Kaspar Hauser (2012), starring Vincent Gallo and directed by Davide Manuli, and Daughter of Mine (2018) by Laura Bispuri with Alba Rohrwacher, both give nod to the serene and mysterious environs of the Sinis peninsula. Both salute the uniqueness of region’s architecture. As with their predecessors, these movies serve to preserve life in a form that seizes the human spirit.
San Salvatore in all its film history is cast as enduring and resilient. Like the Giants of its Nuragic past, the town refuses to diminish. It represents the ravaged colonizers and the foiled pirates, the native defenders and the cowboys, the faithful pilgrims and their followers. Sardinia is solid as stone and its Sinis residents equally firm.
Ultimately, the ancient watering hole that is and was San Salvatore, remains a place where guests and masses alike gather, imbibe, and tell the stories of the past with pride and stolid indifference.