In the little Sanctuary of the Madonna di Bonacatu at Bonacardo, in Sardinia, there is a small terracotta altarpiece representing a 'Madonna and Child'. In the present essay, after retracing the sporadic phases of the sacred image's critical reception, starting from the first mention of it by Giovanni Spano in 1870 up to the most recent articles relating to its restoration in 2016, a stylistic interpretation of the artefact is proposed,
with a consequent attribution to the early activity of Alonso Berruguete in Italy, rather than to an author of the Donatellian sphere in the first half of the 15th century, as hitherto believed. The proposed attribution is accompanied by a reconstruction of the circumstances that possibly contributed to the arrival of the work in Sardinia, a place far removed from the latest artistic tendencies, indicating, in particular, who may well have favoured it: Cardinal “Alborense” Jaime or Giacomo Serra.