In a valley south of the Giara di Serri and Monte Trempu, north and west of fertile hills and east of the Mannu river, Gergei is a small rural town in the Trexenta region and counts some 200 inhabitants. It is known as the “town with the good olive oil,” made from an autochthonous variety called mallocria, an oil that has received a variety of recognitions, making Gergei a member of the national City of Oil association together with 250 other Italian oil producing cities. The town is also famous for its live nativity scene. The centre of town is home to the little late-Gothic San Vito Martire church from the XVI century, graced with a rose window over the main door. Inside are works of art, including a group of Cristo Morto with Madonna and saints sculptures, as well as a painting of Santa Maria from the XVI century. Another old sanctuary is Santa Greca, built in 1328 and rebuilt in late-Gothic style in the XVI century.

The Gergei area was inhabited starting in the Neolithic Age, as proven by a variety of domus de Janas, but its population boomed in the Nuragic Age, as shown by the villages around the Santu Petru and Santa Maria nuraghe, inhabited until the Middle Ages. Legend has it that the inhabitants of the two villages are the men and women who gave life to the first urban nucleus of Gergei, first documented in 1358 when it belonged to Giacomo d’Aragona, son of Alfonso IV, king of Spain, until it became the property of Giovanni Carroz, the Duke of Mandas. Near the two nuraghes were several churches, San Pietro and Santa Lucia on one side and Santa Marta and Santa Maria Maddalena on the other. They no longer exist. Two centuries later, Pietro Perra was born in Gergei. He joined the Order of the Frati Mercedari and took on the name Pietro Nolasco. His heroic virtues and the many wonders he seemed to have worked turned him into a local saint and, in 1633, soon after his death, they built the church of Santu Impera.