Sardinia from the Middle Ages to Contemporaneity (Identities / Identités / Identidades) 9783034335188, 9783034335157, 9783034335317, 9783034335324, 3034335180

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PETER LANG

LUCIANO GALLINARI (ed.)

SARDINIA FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO CONTEMPORANEITY

Identities. An interdisciplinary approach to the roots of the present Identités. Une approche interdisciplinaire aux racines du présent Identidades. Una aproximación interdisciplinar a las raíces del presente

The book offers a historical and methodological update of founding historical themes and moments, and a methodological review more than ever necessary of current interpretations of the History of Sardinia between the Early Middle Ages and the Modernity from an identitarian point of view. And that by means of a greater interaction between History, History of Art, Geography, Archaeology and Architecture. Sardinia has been taken as a case study due to its island nature, with boundaries clearly determined by Geography and, moreover, by its extremely conservative nature. The authors’ aim is to provide scholars with new data and new reading keys to interpret Sardinian History and its Cultural Heritage. Both strongly conditioned by the permanence of Sardinia in Roman and Byzantine orbit, lato sensu, for more than a millennium (3rd c. b.C - 11th c. a.C) and by two other important elements: only about 80 years of a virtually irrelevant Vandalic domain and no Muslim lasting settlements throughout the High Middle Ages, not so far decisively confirmed by Archaeology.

Luciano Gallinari is Researcher at the Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea of the Italian Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR); Ph.D. in Medieval History; Ph.D. in Histoire et Civilisations (EHESS - Paris, France).

www.peterlang.com

SARDINIA FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO CONTEMPORANEITY

Identities. An interdisciplinary approach to the roots of the present Identités. Une approche interdisciplinaire aux racines du présent Identidades. Una aproximación interdisciplinar a las raíces del presente

Vol. 9

Editorial Board: – Flocel Sabaté (Editor) (Institut for Research into Identities and Society, Universitat de Lleida) – Paul Aubert (Aix Marseille Université) – Patrick Geary (University of California, Los Angeles) – Susan Reisz (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú) – Maria Saur (London University)

PETER LANG Bern · Berlin · Bruxelles · New York · Oxford · Warszawa · Wien

LUCIANO GALLINARI (ed.)

SARDINIA FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO CONTEMPORANEITY A case study of a Mediterranean island identity profile

PETER LANG Bern · Berlin · Bruxelles · New York · Oxford · Warszawa · Wien

Bibliographic information published by die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at ‹http://dnb.d-nb.de›. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data: A catalogue record for this book is available from The British Library, Great Britain Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea of the Italian Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) Volume published with the contribution of the Project “E Pluribus unum. Il profilo identitario della Sardegna dal Medioevo alla Contemporaneità”. L.R. 7/2007 Basic research Project, granted by the Autonomous Region of Sardinia, Annuality 2013, Principal Investigator: Luciano Gallinari.

ISSN 2296-3537 pb. ISBN 978-3-0343-3518-8 pb. ISBN 978-3-0343-3531-7 ePub DOI 10.3726/b14265

ISSN 2296-3545 eBook ISBN 978-3-0343-3515-7 eBook ISBN 978-3-0343-3532-4 Mobi

This publication has been peer reviewed. © Peter Lang AG, International Academic Publishers, Bern 2018 Wabernstrasse 40, CH-3007 Bern, Switzerland [email protected], www.peterlang.com All rights reserved. All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems.

Contents

Luciano Gallinari Some criticalities on exegetical and methodological issues of researching the Sardinian identity profile.............................................. 1 Federica Sulas Landscapes, archaeology, and identity in Sardinia.................................. 17 Luciano Gallinari The Sardinian giudici between historical memory and identity. A matter of longue durée?....................................................................... 29 Alessandra Cioppi The Catalan-Aragonese Regnum Sardiniae et Corsicae and the Giudicato of Arborea in the fourteenth century.......................... 45 Esther Martí Sentañes Oligarchies, urban government and royal cities in late medieval Sardinia: elements for the construction of an identity............................. 57 Giuseppe Seche The Navarro family. Mediterranean networks and activities of a family of fifteenth-century Valencian merchants.............................. 73 Maria Giuseppina Meloni Society and identity in fifteenth-century Cagliari testaments.................. 89 Giovanni Sini Reflections on the socio-political and cultural transmissions at the end of the Giudicato of Arborea. Identity-based resistance and (re)construction of historic memory?.............................................. 101

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Rafaella Pilo The political role of noblewomen in the Kingdom of Sardinia at the time of the Camarasa Parliament (1666–1668): a preliminary study................................................................................ 117 Sebastiana Nocco Passing through the Sardinian landscape in search of signs of identity and otherness........................................................................ 131 Andrea Pala Figurative continuity and artistic syncretism in the wooden roofs of Romanesque churches in Sardinia............................................ 145 Jorge Lobos “E pluribus unum. The Sardinian identity profile from the Middle Ages to Contemporaneity”. Cultural architecture of the Sardinian territory........................................................................ 165 María Andrea Tapia – Horacio Casal Architecture and globalisation in Sardinia. The construction of the identity in Contemporary Sardinia, through Architecture........... 185

Luciano Gallinari CNR – Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea

Some criticalities on exegetical and methodological issues of researching the Sardinian identity profile*

1. Some critical reflections on methodological and exegetical approaches to the History of Sardinia It is not easy to motivate the publication of another book on Sardinian identity profile – from the Middle Ages to Contemporaneity, in this case – a theme with a very wide and articulated research literature, although with some significant differences in quality. The present book stems from the need to disseminate some of the contributions produced by an international research project1, and also the opportunity to put forward our reflections on a theme in a constant evolutionary dynamism, and in the light of recent studies too. This is also because of how the History of the island has been used and continues to be used in Sardinia – especially for some specific periods –, for agendas that fall outside the scholarly debate2. These purposes aim at presenting an image of the island that still suffers from rooted and ingrained ste* 1

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I would like to thank Dr. Federica Sulas for checking the text. I am entirely responsible for its content. “E Pluribus unum. Il profilo identitario della Sardegna dal Medioevo alla Contemporaneità”. Project L.R. 7/2007 Basic research Project, granted by the Autonomous Region of Sardinia, Annuality 2013, Principal Investigator: Luciano Gallinari. Two of these periods are undoubtedly the Nuragic one (16th–3rd century B.C.) – divided in a true and proper Nuragic in 16th–11th c. B. C. and Nuragic-PhoenicianPunic in 11th–3rd c. B. C. – and the Medieval one (6th–15th c. A. D.). They are proposed as periods of independence from authorities outside the island and, therefore, truly representative of a supposed Sardinian “civilisation”. Some interpretative traditions have identified, via different ways, in these ages a “pure” island identity – fruit of long historical periods of alleged isolation -, for which they have come to deny or considerably limit the comparison with the Other, by formulating interpretations that deny or reduce to something artificial that much-needed identity.

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reotypes, or from hyper-corrections of these, leading to new interpretations that are not completely solid. Stereotypes, historical and historiographic myths that confirm how memory – and therefore identity – is the result of continuous choices – conscious or not3 – of what we want to remember, what we want to be rather than what we really are, and of how we want to represent ourselves4. In addition to the continuous flowering and, perhaps, in some cases, to the obsessiveness of reflections on Sardinian identity, it is also the insularity which fosters this survival of stereotypes and myths, offering scholars a case study of limited size and, therefore, supposedly manageable with ease5. In some cases, puzzling is the use made of documentary sources available, particularly scarce throughout the Middle Ages until the 14th century, when Sardinia becomes involved in political orbit of the Crown of Aragon and, therefore, its archives. The scarcity of sources is another difficulty with which the scholar of Sardinia must confront himself very scrupulously. More than ever when it comes to reconstructing the identity profile of its people, mostly only through the representation made by the Other, to which it is nearly impossible to oppose the Sardinians’ one, except from the Modern Age onwards, thanks also to the other Iberian archives that provide almost all the sources known until the beginning of the 18th century6. 3

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As it has been pointed out by De Benoist, Alain. L’Impero interiore. Firenze: Ponte alle Grazie, 1996: 68 in the relationship between myth and society ‘[…] is […] the myth that clarifies the social structure’ (‘… è … il mito che chiarisce la struttura sociale’) that has produced it. Ferrarotti, Franco. Il silenzio della parola. Tradizione e memoria in un mondo smemorato. Bari, Dedalo, 2003: 79 confirms Maurice Halbwachs’ opinion, according to which the memory of events or people ‘is a reformulation subject, from time to time, to readjustments and revisions resulting from the changing of the points of view operating in the present’ of who remembers (è ‘una riformulazione soggetta di volta in volta a riaggiustamenti e revisioni che derivano dal mutare dei punti di vista operanti nel presente’). Schiera, Pierangelo. “Dall’identità individuale all’identità collettiva. O piuttosto problemi di legittimazione?”, Identità collettive tra Medioevo ed Età Moderna, Paolo Prodi, Wolfgang Reinhard, eds. Bologna: CLUEB, 2002: 198. An example not to follow is Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel. “A proposito della Sardegna”, Quaderni sardi di storia, 3 (1983): 17–18 who said that the ‘modest residences’ of Sardinian judges seemed a bit similar to the ‘Maori palaces that I once saw in New Zealand’ (ai ‘palazzi Maori che ho visto una volta in Nuova Zelanda’). The scarcity of sources is a problem also lamented by several essays of this volume, which shows interesting and significant explorations of new types of documentation

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Such diligence – even in very recent times – has not been the basis of some interpretative hypotheses that continue to propose stereotypes of isolation and remoteness of Sardinia7. In other texts, on the other hand, they fill the gaps of the sources – not just the textual ones, of course – with theories that are not sufficiently supported by primary sources, but with wide appeal for other scholars8. In this sense, it is paradigmatic the historiographic debate on a theme of great importance for the island history: the possible Islamic presence in Sardinia in the Middle Ages. In recent years, hypotheses have been formulated – much more interesting for the exegetical methodology of their authors than for the few sources cited. These hypotheses envisage a certain and considerable presence of Muslims in parts of the island between the 8th and the 10th c., which would confirm the opening of Sardinia to the Mediterranean with its capital, endowed with a multicultural, perhaps even a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional society ‘which is the perfect image of the Mediterranean world of those centuries’9. Perhaps here lies the historiographic problem:

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and their exegesis through an increasing methodological contribution of social sciences. Martin, Jean-Marie. “Les actes sardes (XIe-XIIe siècle)”, L’héritage Byzantin en Italie (VIIIe-XIIe siècle). I La fabrique documentaire, Jean-Marie Martin, Annick Peters-Custot, Vivien Prigent, eds. Rome: École Francaise de Rome, 2011: 191 and 194, who still supports the idea of the island’s geographical isolation. Ortu, Gian Giacomo. “Establishing Power and Law in Medieval and Modern Sardinia”, A companion to Sardinian History, Michelle Hobart, ed. Boston: Brill, 2017: 229: ‘when written documents began to dispel the pitch darkness that had enveloped the island in Byzantine times’. The scholar confirms – after many years and despite the growth of sources pointing tothe opposite direction – his vision of alleged isolation and irrelevance of Sardinia from/for the western world until Gregory VII’s age. See in this volume also Galoppini Laura- “Overview of Sardinian History (500–1500)”: 90–91: ‘During the centuries of the ‘long Byzantine age’, (…) the island was still not completely excluded from maritime traffic and Mediterranean events’; ‘After the Arab expansion into the African coastal countries (…) Sardinia was isolated and distant from Byzantine influence (…)’. The explanation for such statements also consists in the bibliography mentioned in these texts: completely insufficient and outdated. Gallinari, Luciano. “Reflections on Byzantine Sardinia between seventh and eleventh centuries in the light of recent historiographical proposal”, Bilanci e prospettive storiografiche, Maria Giuseppina Meloni, Anna Maria Oliva, Olivetta Schena, eds. Roma: Viella, 2015: 83–107. Salvi, Donatella. Fois, Piero. “San Saturnino: uno specchio di una società multiculturale fra IX e X secolo”, Settecento-Millecento. Storia, archeologia e arte nei

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the adherence of events to the “perfect” model, according to current scholars’ parameters10. As if, the starting institutional dependency and, the later formal one on the Byzantine Empire, the diplomatic relations with the Holy Roman Empire in the first half of the 9th century, and with the Caliphate of Cordoba in the mid-10th c., were not sufficient elements to believe that Sardinia had a multiethnic Mediterranean society. These are all relations proved by numerous written and epigraphic sources of Western and Eastern origin. But we go even further. On the basis on abovementioned sources and interpretations, and adding arguments of logic, admissibility and presumption, there is someone who goes as far as claiming a sure Muslim presence on the island. Simultaneously, the same scholar even questions the Christianity of Sardinia between the 8th and 10th centuries. All of this, after having underlined at the beginning on his writing that ‘the problem of verifying sources is therefore crucial to the development of research on medieval Sardinia’11. “secoli bui” del Mediterraneo. Dalle fonti scritte, archeologiche ed artistiche alla ricostruzione della vicenda storica. La Sardegna laboratorio di esperienze culturali. Rossana. Martorelli, ed. Cagliari: Scuola Sarda Editrice, 2013: II, 855 and 866.: ‘che è l’immagine perfetta del mondo mediterraneo di quei secoli’.These are statements by Piero Fois. 10 It is not surprising that the authors of this historiographic hypothesis in the final conclusions of their essay deny what they have written in the previous pages, stating that: ‘It is important that […] we do not feel authorised to think of Sardinia and Cagliari in particular, as a place of peaceful coexistence between different cultural groups’ ( ‘È importante che […] non ci si senta autorizzati a pensare alla Sardegna e a Cagliari in particolare, come un luogo di convivenza pacifica tra gruppi culturali diversi’). Salvi, Donatella. Fois, Piero. “San Saturnino: uno specchio…”: 867. 11 According to Zedda, Corrado. “A Revision of Sardinian History between the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries”, Michelle Hobart, ed., A companion to Sardinian History: 117–119 from the mid-8th century Sardinia became a ‘“frontier land”; Christian, perhaps, but with an Islamic presence which influenced the internal equilibrium of the island through these external relations’, and therefore ‘It is difficult to deny with any credibility Islam’s presence in the ninth-century Sardinia’ since ‘From a strategic point of view, it would have been absurd’, as it was an indispensable support base for Aghlabid expeditions. Such historiographic hypotheses seem to recall what has been said by Hobsbawm, Eric J. Ranger, Terence. L’invenzione della tradizione. Torino: Einaudi, 1997. For a clear and detailed analysis of relationships between Sardinia and Muslims in the Early Middle Ages see Metcalfe, Alex. The Muslims of Medieval Italy. Edinburg: Edinburg University Press: 2009 and “Early Muslim raids on

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These interpretative hypotheses are linked to what we mentioned before on the reconstruction of memory, according to choices that respond to the purpose – conscious and not – of those who rebuild it: to show how Sardinian society was aligned with contemporary Mediterranean society, revealing that, for them, this was not the case neither in that historical period nor today. Once again, we see surfacing the belief, very widespread in Sardinia – sometimes even unconsciously, as it emerges in the texts –, that the island must always be “special”, detached from the “normal” course of the surrounding events, despite statements in the opposite direction12. If we want to find a sort of “original sin” in the delicate relationship between historiography and sources on Sardinia – and not only the one on the Middle Ages – we have to go back to the story of “Arborea’s Forgeries (Falsi d’Arborea)”in the second half of the 19th century. This was an operation that lends itself to a twofold interpretation: 1) a fraudulent reconstruction of a historical memory with two purposes: a clearly economic one for the counterfeiters and another cultural and psychological one, responding to the needs of counterfeiters and the contemporary Sardinian society13; 2) the Falsi are not historical memory, but a medium of the Sardinia”, The Making of Medieval Sardinia, Alex Metcalfe, Giovanni Serreli, eds. Leiden: Brill, in press. I thank the author for a first preview of his text. 12 See Hobart, Michelle. “Sardinia as a Crossroads in the Mediterranean: An Introduction”, Michelle Hobart, ed., A companion to Sardinian History. According to Cossu, Tatiana. “Dell’identità al passato: il caso della preistoria”, Sardegna. Seminario sull’identità, Giulio Angioni et al., eds. Cagliari-Nuoro: CUEC/ISRE: 2007: 124–125 this sort of claims reveals ‘the feeling that one is not part of the “great history”[…] the perception of not being the centre but the periphery, the thinking of not being among those who build the History, but among those who have suffered it [… for someone] “the complex of dwarfism”’ (‘questo tipo di affermazioni rivela ‘il non sentirsi parte della “grande storia” […] il non percepirsi centro ma periferia, il non pensarsi fra coloro che costruiscono la storia, ma fra coloro che l’hanno subita [… per alcuni] “il complesso del nanismo”’). 13 An interesting psychiatric analysis of authors and the internal and external aims that led them to act is in Rudas, Nereide. L’isola dei coralli. Roma, Carocci:1997: 69–76. After confirming the most evident economic aims, the psychiatrist supposed that the absence of sources on the Sardinian Middle Ages ‘that denied the Sardinians a History and an identity’ (‘che negava ai Sardi una storia e un’identità’) would cause the forgers a narcissistic wound that could stimulate ‘the invention of fathers, according to totipotent fantasies’ (‘l’invenzione di padri, secondo fantasie totipotenti). The scholar highlighted the sharing of these same needs also in the upper classes of Sardinian society of the 19th century.

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‘illusory language of identification, ambition to omnipotence, and the notyet-achieved access to the reality’ (‘linguaggio illusorio dell’identificazione, dell’aspirazione all’onnipotenza e del non ancora raggiunto accesso al reale’)14. These needs and ambitions are present to some extent also in today’s Sardinian society15. Current historiographic problems also concern scholars who transform themselves into primary sources, not satisfied with what these contained therein16. Or, in other cases, scholars deny the sources’ contents even in the titles of their essays17. Such attitudes are found with regard to another fundamental theme of Sardinian medieval history, concerning the alleged kingship of Sardinian 14 On the Falsi d’Arborea (Arborea Forgeries), see Marrocu, Luciano. Theodor Mommsen nell’isola dei falsari. Cagliari: CUEC, 2009 and the bibliography therein. The Falsi’s episode supports what mentioned with regards to Halbwachs by Assmann, Jan. La memoria culturale. Scrittura, ricordo e identità politica nelle grandi civiltà antiche. Torino: Einaudi, 1997: 22 ‘[The past is] a social construction whose composition results from the need for meaning and the reference frameworks of the present. The past does not fix itself by nature, but it is a cultural creation’. (‘[il passato è] una costruzione sociale la cui composizione risulta dal bisogno di senso e dai quadri di riferimento del presente. Il passato non si fissa naturalmente, ma è una creazione culturale.’ While on psychological interpretations, see Rudas, Nereide. L’isola dei coralli..: 76. 15 As an example in the historical context, see the identification of Nuragic Sardinia with the Atlantis of Plato, object of recent literature and exhibitions not limited to the island. According to Madau, Marcello. “Le radici e gli eroi. Frammenti di un’indipendenza perduta”, Sardegna. Seminario sull’identità…: 134 the great success of Atlantis hypothesis was favoured by breaking down of the theory of the constant Sardinian resistance and by the fact that ‘ the [island] dynamic mythopoetics had to need new lymph’ (‘la mitopoiesi dinamica [isolana] doveva avere bisogno di nuova linfa’). See note 25. 16 Emblematic in this sense is the case of the Greek seals of Arborea, whose legend has been arbitrarily interpreted for fifteen years in order to adhere to the typology of the homologous seals of the Giudicato of Calari,.This has had repercussions on the interpretation of the origin of Sardinian Giudicati. See the detailed analysis in Gallinari, Luciano. “Reflections on Byzantine Sardinia…”: 89–91. 17 Zedda, Corrado. Il Giudicato di Cagliari. Storia, società, evoluzione e crisi di un regno sardo. Cagliari: Arkadia, 2017: 9–10 mentions the Notae de Matilda Comitissa, who in the eleventh c. insert the Sardinian rulers in a list of authorities with which she had friendship relations. He stresses that ‘they are mentioned together with kings and emperors, but the title is accurately distinguished from that of the real sovereigns…’. Nevertheless, the scholar alternates the terms Giudicato and Kingdom in the title of the same book, as if they were synonyms.

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judges and their “states”. A topic that is also at the centre of recent publications, and clearly full of of present-day identitarian and nationalistic aspects, giving the impression that they choose to ignore some authoritative medieval legal sources, that are contemporary to the Giudicati. In addition to the Notae de Mathilda Comitissa already mentioned, let us consider the Siete Partidas, the legal encyclopaedia wanted by the King of Castile Alfonso X el Sabio in the second half of the 13th century. In the Second Partida, Title I, Law XI, dedicated to emperors and kings, their powers and origins, the lack of royal status for Sardinian judges is manifested by a precise reference that leaves no room for misunderstandings: Who are the other great and honourable lords who are not emperors or kings. And judge means both as judger (a person who judges) and they are not used to give this name to any lord except the four Lords who judge and rule in Sardinia18.

In other occasions, on the contrary, the exegesis of the sources is not particularly rigorous or supported by an adequate bibliography on the subject matter19. The problem of this difficult relationship between historians and sources, and the survival of historiographic and identity leitmotifs by now stratified, are increased when both are present in texts printed by prestigious Italian and foreign journals or publishers. This, in fact, increase their visibility and authority20. 18 Alfonso X, Las Siete Partidas. En Salamanca, por Andrea de Portonariis, 1555, Segunda Partida, Titulo I, Ley XI, f. 7v: ‘Quales son los otros grandes, e honrados Señores que non son Emperadores, nin reyes. E juge tanto quiere dezir como judgador e non acostumbraron llamar este nome a ningund Señor, fueras ende, a los quatro Señores que judgan, e señorean en Sardeña’. 19 In order to prove that the judges derived their authority from God and not from the right of succession, Ortu, Gian Giacomo. “Establishing Power and Law in Medieval and Modern Sardinia”: 232, affirms that they ‘were in fact a deo electi et coronati (chosen and crowned by God)’ and he adds that ‘a mock election was carried out by the prelates of the realm’ and that ‘the legitimate succession to the throne was reinforced by the expedient of pairing the son/heir to the government’. The formula of election and coronation by God was used only by the judge of Calari Orzocco Torchitorio I in 1066 and, in addition, ‘the expedient of pairing’ was common among the Italian princes of Byzantine origin. 20 In addition to what stated in note 7 Hobart, Michelle. “Sardinia as a Crossroads in the Mediterrenean: An Introduction…”: 3–4, and 6 emphasizes, as if it were a specificity of the Sardinians, that their relations with foreigners ‘could variously be

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2. A quick overview of the contents of this book Turning now to a quick presentation of the essays in this volume, Federica Sulas makes interesting observations on the relationship between Sardinian identity and archaeology, which are well linked to what it has been highlighted about the historical literature. She points out that the abovementioned relationship ‘is a complex theme’ especially since there is a ‘lack of historiographic debate’, which may have significant implications for archaeology. And not only that, in the light of what it has been said so far. Equally significant is a second disciplinary deficiency, related to the research on ‘climatic and environmental conditions’, almost completely neglected compared to the vast literature on the western Mediterranean. This lack is even more significant in view of the important implications such conditions might have had on the demographic studies, so widespread in Sardinia. Another point of Sulas’ analysis is very interesting and symmetrical to what it has been said about the History: the survival of the stereotype on the relationship between islanders and the outside world, increasingly represented as ‘a conflict-based, one-way relationship’. A relationship with a specific image in the archaeological literature: ‘there always seems to be an “other” who operates, acts and dismantles over local landscapes, resources, powers and peoples’. Sulas makes same considerations with few nuances also regarding the Giudicati – ‘the period of perhaps most-celebrated autonomy’ – since, even in this case, ‘the historical-archaeological narrative often focuses on the influence of external factors’21.

characterized as symbiotic or hostile, depending on the time and place.’. Or, when she points out that it seems that locals [Sardinians], Vandals, and North African Christian arrivals were living together on Sardinia in a more fluid complex society’. Why is she surprised, given that Sardinia was part of the Vandalic Kingdom and, later, of the Byzantine Prefecture of Africa, not to consider obviously the relations with the North African coast during the Western Roman Empire? Luckily, she adds, ‘Currently, a new generation of scholars (…) suggest that Sardinia was more heterogeneous than previously thought’. But previously thought by whom? 21 As an example of Sardinian past subtracted or erased from history, Cossu, Tatiana. “Dell’identità al passato…”: 123–124 mentions the case of the Nuragic statues called “Giants of Monte Prama” preserved for about thirty years in the warehouses of the Archaeological Museum of Cagliari. In this case, the “external enemy” would be the

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All these themes are also in Luciano Gallinari’s contribution, in which some elaborations of historical memory and identity of Sardinian judges between 10th and 14th c. are analysed from social and anthropological perspectives. The study highlights some historiographic and exegetic criticalities in the analysis of a fundamental historical period for Sardinia. An era that has been semioticised with nationalistic and identitarian values primarily for current, non-academic purposes, which find a wide echo in the island’s media22. The case studies examined also corroborate the hypothesis of the existence in Sardinia of a rich heritage of oral history and archives and libraries that allowed the elaboration of such political-cultural discourses. Four articles analyse the creation (1297) and development of the Regnum Sardiniae et Corsicae for two centuries from institutional, social, cultural and economic perspectives. An event that had enormous influence on Sardinian culture lato sensu, since it set the island into the Iberian orbit, which ended only at the beginning of the 18th century. Alessandra Cioppi proposes a comparison between the institutional systems of the Regnum and the Giudicato of Arborea in the 14th century. According to the author, the coexistence between these two state entities led to an adjustment of the Iberian administrative structures on the island. It became a sort of institutional “laboratory” and caused a growing Iberianisation of Sardinian society, even though with the apparent respect of the external forms of some legal institutions. Esther Martí Sentañes focuses her attention on Castell de Càller, highlighting how the oligarchy of the Regnum’s capital immediately founded its identity on its Iberian origins. This link is further underlined at the beginning of the 15th century with a reference to the “conquerors” of the city – that is, to the illustrious ancestors and “founders” of the new urban, insular identity, a theme present in other essays of this book. The scholar also examines how the city of Sassari worked to prevent his identity from being erased by the policy of Iberian repopulation or the conquest by the Giudicato of Arborea. A situation similar is that emerging Italian State, through its bodies in charge of conservation, the academic world, author of ’ the ‘official historiography’. 22 See in this sense Giovanni Sini’s text and the proposal for a monument to the Battle of Macomer (1478), presented as the end of an alleged Sardinian independence, ignoring the numerous documents – islanders and not – attesting the opposite between 11th and 15th c.

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from Rafaella Pilo’s text, focused on the mid-17th century. Another karstic phenomenon of identitarian longue durée. Maria Giuseppina Meloni, enriches with other details the image of Aragonese Cagliari between 1430 and 1508 thanks to the testaments. They show a city restarting its economic activities and attracting new inhabitants from the Iberian Peninsula and the island, after the long brackets of hostilities with the Giudicato of Arborea (1353–1420). The bequests show a social fabric where it coexists a plurality of cultures which are beginning to mingle, confuting the historiographic stereotype of a clear ethnic separation. From the mid-15th century, it emerges – and it seems another interesting longue durée phenomenon – that the osmosis between ethnicities and cultures, even in the most personal aspects of funerary rituals, was easier and more frequent among the lower middle classes of the Appendici In the districts around the Castle, the intermingling of Sardinians and foreigners had been happening for centuries and, here again, it emerged another kind of identity, linked to the neighbourhood of residence, to its own urban microcosm. Based on the correspondence between three brothers Navarro, Antoni, and Arnau Dessì, their correspondents in Cagliari – of extraordinary value for the rarity of private and notary sources of the Late Medieval Sardinia – Giuseppe Seche offers a detailed cross-section of the economic life of the city between the seventies of the 15th c. and the first decade of the 16th c. It emerges an image of an Iberian centre increasingly intertwined with Mediterranean traditions, thanks to the extensive network of relations and contacts of the Navarros extended to the urban and feudal aristocracy and the Regnum’s officials. This network benefited economically not only Valencia, Navarros’ starting point, but also Sardinia thanks to agreements with island business operators. Giovanni Sini analyses the delicate phase of institutional entry into the Regnum of a part of the Giudicato of Arborea and the following creation of the Marquises of Oristano’s new dynasty. The scholar enriches with data and considerations the character of Leonardo Cubello. The main figure of this important identity shift for the territory and his family, also because he is the bearer of a project of a new peaceful coexistence between Sardinians and Iberians. Perhaps, he was facilitated by the condition of being an illegitimate or a son of a previous liaison of his mother. He is a paradigmatic character at the identitarian level, who – although he is historiographically considered a collateral member of the Judges of

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Arborea’s dynasty – used his maternal name as if he wanted to ‘deny a part of his identitarian memory’. Sini also shows that in the mid-15th century the name Arborea no longer evoked the fear of riots and it was indeed the subject of recovery and ennoblement. So much that in the 17th century, several gentry families from the island sought a bond with the House of Arborea. With Rafaella Pilo, the attention remains on the second half of the 17th century and the diplomatic relations with Louis XIV’s France, observed in his reflections in Sardinia. This was another moment of economic and political crisis that raised nationalistic identitarian discourses aimed at protecting the interests of the Sardinians (naturals) at the expense of other subjects of the Spanish Crown. The management of the international and island situation leads the scholar to point out the low incisiveness of Madrid directives, and of some viceroys’ political action. The evolution of these events was reflected in the viceroy Camarasa’s Parliament (1666–1668), and in fact Pilo focuses on its main characters and four top-level women in the socio-political life of the island. She also underlines the rise of rivalry between the Northern and the Southern Capes of the Regnum, with the city of Sassari that supported its aspirations and privileges in a hostile manner to the Crown and the Pro-Madrid Cagliari. A situation that mutatis mutandis refers to what Esther Martí Sentañes pointed out for the 14th century. With Sebastiana Nocco we enter the second part of this volume dedicated to the relationship between landscape and tangible Sardinian cultural heritage. The scholar offers a reading of the Sardinian landscape as an ‘identity tale’, loaded with symbolic meaning from the communities. The scholar stresses that landscape is a cultural phenomenon semioticised by its observer, as confirmed by Jorge Lobos and Mirko Mellino in their research on the relationship between Landscape and Architecture23. Nocco also points out the important role of the sites of memory – parts of culturally, multi-stratified territories – which enhance the sense of communities’ affiliation and lend themselves to telling the History.

23 According to Assmann, Jan. La memoria culturale….: 33–34 entire landscapes can be mediums of cultural memory and, in this case, themselves become signs,’ that is they are semioticised’ (‘ossia vengono semiotizzati’) irrespective of they contain products of human culture.

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Finally, the geographer highlights the deep changes induced on the landscape by globalisation24. Changes that have led to the loss of the productive identity of a territory and the subsequent acquisition of a cultural identity to be preserved and promoted25. As in the case of the large Sardinian mining heritage: ‘a very salient identitarian symbol’, almost a red thread in island identity, as it appears also by Lobos-Mellino’s contribution. Andrea Pala offers some elements of artistic culture that pass from the Late Middle Ages to the Modern Age, from original Italian areas to other decisively Iberians, enriching them with the results of other cultural phenomena. Specifically, the author focuses on the wooden figurative repertoire used by island craftsmen, present in large numbers until the 17th century. As an example, he uses the geometrical motifs of the “roofs’ warps” of some medieval churches, which were adopted by Iberians and, through the centuries, were brought to actual weavers of carpets or the engravers of home furniture. This case and the ‘stylistic dimension of mudejar carpentry’, including also Arabic cultural elements – present in the island two centuries after its birth in Catalonia – confirm the articulated stratigraphy of the Sardinian cultural profile, and its conservative capacity. Jorge Lobos and Mirko Mellino introduce us to the relationship between “Cultural Architecture” and the island territory, in order to highlight some Sardinian identitarian elements in its contemporary Architecture. The research is conducted with 40 students from the University of Sassari, considered ‘the summary of the Sardinian historical cultural process’ (‘el resumen del proceso cultural histórico sardo’). The premise of the scholars is interesting as highlights how there is a timid relationship between Sardinian identitarian process and the contemporary Architecture; a little noticeable relationship at first glance. A concept reaffirmed by further reflection by the authors who, on many occasions, do not see at the same level ‘Sardinian cultural process and the architectural quality of the works that represent it’ (‘el proceso cultural sardo y la calidad arquitectònica de las obras que lo representan’). 24 This concept is also present in the two essays by Jorge Lobos, Mirko Mellino and Andrea Tapia, Horacio Casal, also dedicated to the relationship between globalisation and architecture 25 On places of the landscape as a principle of meaning for the inhabitants see Augé, Marc. Non Luoghi. Introduzione a una antropologia della surmodernità. Milano: Elèuthera, 2001. Appadurai, Arjun. Modernità in polvere. Roma: Meltemi, 2001 stresses the fragile and dangerous nature of places as a distinctive feature of social life.

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These considerations are stimulating and very indicative, as they confirm once again that the current Sardinian identity profile does not have very clear contours, although in the island there is a sort of “obsession” in talking about identity26. The authors propose to solve the ‘timid relationship’ via a Sardinian cultural architecture, more aware of the island identitarian values. María Andrea Tapia and Horacio Casal examine the relationship between Architecture and Sardinian cultural identity, through the case study of the Sardinian Regional Government chaired by Renato Soru (2004– 2008). A period where, according to the authors, ‘the dialectical relationship between constructed form and ideological ethics was revealed’ (‘se puso de manifiesto esta relación dialéctica entre forma construida y ética ideológica’), in the sense that this government attributed a dominant role in building the island’s image to the landscape and architecture. The latter, however, was represented by several ArchiStars, creators of globalised and globalising “objects”. As an example, the authors focus on the “Bètile” project – the Nuraghic and Contemporary Art Museum designed by Zaha Hadid – a work that changes from a container to a content itself, without any local and cultural references. This building, in turn, was linked to the globalisation’ values27. The opposite of what has to do the 21st century Architecture, which, if wants to build identitarian and cultural values in order to be interpreted by the user, it must refer to elements of local culture, as also indicated by Lobos – Mellino.

26 This reflection of the two authors on contemporary Sardinian identity refers to Nereide Rudas’ consideration in notes 13 and 14. 27 A few years ago, we pointed out that the ideological base of Bètile was provided by Giovanni Lilliu, a Sardinian archaeologist and author of an interpretative theory of island history, called “constant Sardinian resistance”, according to which, the inhabitants of the interior of Sardinia would resist any attempt at conquer. A historiographic myth, which nourished an identity concept based on notions of purity and uncontamination, contradicted by linguistics and archaeology, which, however, took root in island society. See note 15 and Gallinari, Luciano. “Un nuovo museo per le identità sarde: il caso di Bètile a Cagliari”, Il Mediterraneo delle città. Scambi, confronti, culture, rappresentazioni. Franco Salvatori, ed. Roma: Viella, 2008: 223–245.

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3. Conclusions We want to conclude this presentation with the hope of stimulating the reading of this volume and with the wish that it can contribute to the historiographic and methodological debate in the various disciplinary areas represented here. In particular, we hope that it will help overcoming some stereotypes still existing – sometimes unconsciously – in the interpretations of Sardinian historical events. Interpretations that sometimes reveal still unjustified feelings of inferiority, peripherality, isolation, often hyper-corrected with attitudes claiming for pride and uniqueness, all rebuffed by History. These interpretations are particularly widespread in different sectors of contemporary culture and society, which inevitably become tools for political, nationalist, autonomous and identitarian claims28. Attitudes leading to a “family romance” rather than a “family history”, which ‘presupposes hypothetical and imaginary ancestors and thus it builds not an identity but a pseudo-identity’29. Such attitudes persist in the historiography of cultural events in Sardinia, denying some optimistic predictions30. 28 Here, are particularly appropriate some statements by Nietzsche, Friedrich. Sull’utilità e il danno della storia per la vita. Considerazioni inattuali. Torino: Einaudi, 1981: 95–96. The philosopher, in fact, informs of the danger inherent in the inability to distinguish between ‘a monumental past and a mythical invention, because from one of these worlds can be drawn exactly the same impulses as from the other’ (‘un passato monumentale e un’invenzione mitica, perché da uno di questi mondi possono essere tratti esattamente gli stessi impulsi che dall’altro’). 29 It is necessary to make some adjustments before applying the psychoanalytic concept of “family romance”, introduced by Sigmund Freud in 1908, not to individuals but to social groups – for which it was used as a saga of origins, vicissitudes and kinship of a lineage. In its original ambit, ‘the subject imagines to be born of parents of high social rank, but he despises their own thinking of being a child adopted by them’ (‘il soggetto immagina di essere nato da genitori di rango sociale elevato, ma disprezza i propri pensando di essere un bambino da essi adottato’). This did not necessarily happen in the historical cases examined: older or prestigious ancestors/ parents were sought, without denying the original ones. See Parlanti, Claudia. “Brevi riflessioni sul romanzo familiare”, Il romanzo familiare, Quaderni di Psicoanalisi & Psicodramma Analitico, anno 8, n. 1 (dicembre 2016): 148–153: 149. See my text in this same volume. 30 Twenty years ago Rudas, Nereide. L’isola dei coralli..: 151–152 stated he was seeing Sardinians moving towards the entrance ‘ in a family history, in a history tout court’.

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A more balanced relationship with History, with all its “ages”, with no foreclosure or preference – and with its changing, mutually identitarian profile – could have important repercussions on the entire Sardinian society. Even on a more optimal management of its political autonomy and the tangible and intangible cultural heritage. Since, like it or not, the current Sardinians are the product of all that History, and not just of some of its parts.

Federica Sulas Centre of Excellence for Urban Network Evolutions of the Danish National Research Foundation (grant DNRF119), Aarhus University, Denmark

Landscapes, archaeology, and identity in Sardinia

This chapter presents an overview of landscape history in Sardinia with a particular focus on the ways in which archaeological studies have informed, and have been shaped by, perceptions of the island’s diverse environment over time. By examining the unfolding trends of over a century of archaeological research, narratives about Sardinia’s landscapes and how they have changed over time appear very closely connected to the formation and transformation of multiple identities: from the conservative shepherd society of prehistoric mountains to the villains of medieval farmlands.

1. Introduction

One might generalise that the present is, among other things, always a battleground about the interpretation of the events and meaning of the past. That is, the present is constructed, in part, by beliefs of how things were, and so how they should or not be. The past must be subjugated and harnessed in order to create the social order of the present1.

Archaeology has deep historical roots in Sardinia. Fragmented by themes and approaches, archaeological research has produced an impressive amount of data and knowledge concerning the island’s past. The archaeological record has supplied, and continues to do so (directly or otherwise), a materia prima for the modelling, interpretations and aspirations of identify not only for the islanders, but also for Sardinian landscapes. 1

Yoffee, Norman. “Peering into the Palimpsest”, Negotiating the Past in the Past: Identity, Memory and Landscape in Archaeological Research. Norman Yoffee, ed. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2007: 1.

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Yet, if archaeology in and of Sardinia can build on decades of scholarship, the available record remains severely fragmented by discipline, context and meaning. Such scenario emerges promptly from a survey of published literature concerning the history of settlement pattern and landscapes in the island2. The survey focused primarily on articles published in peer-reviewed journals (Table 1) from the mid-19th century until 2016, but also considered other types of publications such as monographs and edited volumes, and recent doctoral dissertations. The exercise allowed to develop a general overview of main topics addressed in archaeological literature and to identify potential trends in the discipline. In this chapter, I discuss the three most prominent themes recorded and consider how these relate to approaches to, and understandings of, identity making in Sardinia: 1) landscape and insularity; 2) continuity and chance between the past and the present; and 3) the use of archaeological models in identity making. “Table 1. List of journals surveyed”. Journal

Period

Bullettino Archaeologico Sardo

1855–1858

Archeologia medievale

1978–2013

Fasti Online

2004–2016

Bollettino di Archeologia online

2008, 2011–2015

2. Landscapes and insularity The presence and settlement of external groups on the island, whether Phoenicians of the Bronze Age or Catalans of the medieval period, are dominant themes in most of archaeological literature since the 19th century. While elsewhere in the Mediterranean basin early 19th century-scholars were considering indigenous settlement dynamics3, earliest discoveries 2 3

The survey and resulting bibliographic catalogue was conducted as part of the E pluribus unum project in 2016. For example, the first director of archaeological excavations at Pompei, Giuseppe Fiorelli (1823‒1826), later founder of the Scuola Archeologica di Pompei.

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on Sardinian soil were driving the first scholars overseas in search of the peoples, cultures and origins of the many scarabs, ceramics and more ‘orientalising’ findings emerging from coastal sites such as Tharros4, in southwestern Sardinia. This tradition of studies persists in the following decades, though primarily concerned with stylistic comparison between artefacts found on the island and material cultures of Roman Africa. The first artefacts and ruins studied were primarily from fortuitous and random discoveries, and not from stratigraphic excavations, which will not start until the second half of the 20th century. Beyond considerations on archaeological methods and interpretations, it is noteworthy the perspective applied to interpret the first findings from archaeological contexts and its legacy in later studies: the interest on Sardinia by other Mediterranean cultures since later prehistory and a limited record of indigenous cultures and settlement dynamics. This is intertwined with a second main theme permeating research and narratives on the relations between Sardinia and the external world: that is ‘the others’, being these Arabs, Genoeses, Pisans, or Catalans. In the history of late antique-medieval Sardinia, Arabs (Saracens or Moors) are almost synonymous of raids and conflicts—always brought in by ‘the barbarian’, coming from overseas, against ‘the indigenous’. The latter would be the shepherd from Barbagia, the merchant with a Tuscan accent, or the judge educated in Catalonia, depending on the period and context. Raids, conflicts, and conquest at the hands of Arab-Muslims have fuelled another niche of studies from the mid-19th century until today. Besides a few important exceptions5, the themes of Arabs in Sardinia appear almost exclusively concerned with the raids (assumed or documented) by

4

5

Articles and notizie on the presence of foreign peoples on the island and the contacts with other Mediterranean cultures feature prominently in the first issues of the Bullettino Archeologico Sardo (henceforth BAS) from 1855‒1861, which then included eleven issues year. Pinna, Fabio. “Le testimonianze archeologiche relative ai rapporti tra gli Arabi e la Sardegna nel medioevo”, RiMe. Rivista dell’Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea, 4 (2010): 11–37. On the presence and operating of Arab and Muslim communities in the western Mediterranean during the early medieval period see Metcalfe, Alex. The Muslims of Medieval Italy. Edinburg: Edinburg University Press, 2009; Bruce, Travis. “The politics of violence and trade: Denia and Pisa in the eleventh century”, Journal of Medieval History, 32 (2006): 127–142.

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‘Moors’, driven by economic and trade agendas6. However, here one might also consider the ‘Oriental’ flavour of some artistic expressions recorded by Roberto Coroneo7 for the medieval period. If anything, some of these expressions date back to the period of the so-called incursioni barbaresche. Indeed, the Moorish threats feature extensively in the first issues of the Bullettino Archeologico Sardo during the second half of the 19th century8, but then the Arabs were not all pirates and plunders. Giovanni Spano, for example, recognises a mixed gusto in medieval, gothic architecture, illustrating perhaps the input of Arab architects. After all, he argues, one only needs to look overseas to find churches built by Arab or Pisan architects9. Spano’s reference ushers in a second, prominent external group from mainland Italy: Pisans and Genoeses. On the relations with Pisa and Genoa, their presence on the island, and their legacy there is a vast literature10. Here, my concern is merely to consider how these groups are presented in archaeological literature on Sardinia. For our Tuscan and Ligurian ‘cousins’ too, the portrait appears often dull. Archaeological studies are primarily concerned with issues of trade and commerce, spheres wherein both Pisans and Genoeses played crucial roles. The focus is on the analysis and interpretation of material culture (ceramics, coinage), and how it reflects contacts, trade and exchange with mainland Italy11. For other aspects such as power or belief, there seems to 6

E.g. Spano, Giovanni. “Descrizione dell’antica citta di Sulcis”, BAS, III/5–6 (1857): 77–81; Oman, Giovanni. “Vestiges arabes en Sardaigne”, Revue de l’Occident musulman et de la Méditerranée, 8/1 (1970): 175–184; Fois, Piero. “Il ruolo della Sardegna nella conquista islamica dell’Occidente (VIII secolo)”, RiMe. Rivista dell’Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea, 7 (2011): 5–26. 7 Coroneo, Roberto. Arte in Sardegna dal IV alla metà dell’IX secolo. Cagliari: Edizioni A.V., 2011. 8 In the first issues of BAS, ‘Saracens’ are cited for all sorts of offence from the destruction of towns to pillage and robbing of antiquities. E.g., Martini, Pietro “Nora – S. Ignazio Martire”, BAS, II/5 (1856): 68–71; Spano, Giovanni. “Fondazione del R. Museo di Cagliari”, BAS II/10 (1856): 151–154; “Antico mosaico della Cricca”, BAS, III/6 (1857): 82–85; “Descrizione dell’antica città di Neapolis”. BAS, V/9 (1859): 129–137. 9 Spano, Giovanni. “Porta laterale destra della Cattedrale di Cagliari”, BAS, II/7 (1856): 97–100. 10 See, e.g. Artizzu, Fabrizio. La Sardegna pisana e genovese. Sassari: Chiarella, 1985. 11 There is now an increasing number of Ph.D. dissertations examining material cultures from archaeological excavations of medieval sites, e.g. Deriu, Daniela. Le produzioni ceramiche da fuoco tardoantiche altomedievali dai siti della Sardegna settentrionale, Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Università di Sassari (2012–2013); Deriu,

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be a tendency to turn to the written record. Yet, the material expression of Pisan-Genoese presence or influence can inform on intangible aspects. Jean Michel Poisson, for examples, develops an interdisciplinary analysis of the socio-political contributions associated with Pisan presence. Integrating architectonic, artistic, and documentary records, Poisson is able to address the role played by Pisan nobles in the courts of the Giudicati and the input of merchant families in the urban social fabric12. Similar comments can be made with regards to the relations with the Catalans. For the 19th century-scholars, Catalans were often the smugglers of Sardinian archaeological heritage13. Surprisingly, one might argue that archaeology’s contribution to the late medieval period ends here since very little research on this period seems to have followed. Indeed, while SardinianCatalan relations have been the focus of a sustained, multidisciplinary research over the last decades, spanning history, architecture, language and toponomastic studies, and a steadily growing literature14, archaeology seems to lag behind in terms of contribution to Sardinia’s post-medieval past15. Yet, excavations in urban Alghero since the mid-2000s have shown what and how archaeology can add and connect to the historical record to develop a more refined, nuanced understanding of the past16 —this remains today a unique case study. The emergence of studies concerned with issues

12

13

14

15 16

M. Chiara. Archeologia urbana ad Alghero: dal Castellas al Monastero di Santa Chiara, Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Università di Sassari (2015). E.g., Poisson, Jean Michel. “Èlites urbaines colonials et authodctones dans la Sardaigne pisane (XII-XIIIe s.)”, Actes de congrès de la Société des historiens médiévistes, 27/1 (1996): 165–181. E.g., Spano, Giovanni. “Studi archeologici in Sardegna”, BAS, IV/5 (1858): 76–80; “Osservazioni e note sopra il sarcofago di Petronilla trovato a Decimo”, BAS, V/3 (1859): 40–44. A bibliography on the topic is beyond the scope here, but it is worth citing some works that address themes central to this chapter within the framework of SardinianCatalan relations: Gallinari, Luciano. “Dieci anni di storiografia sulla Sardegna catalana (2000–2010): considerazioni e prospettive”, Sardegna Catalana, Anna Maria Oliva, Olivetta Schena, eds. Barcelona: Institut d’Estudis Catalans, 2014: 373–394. Serreli, Giovanni. “I mutamenti nell’assetto insediativo del regno di Sardegna in epoca catalana”, Sardegna Catalana…: 271–284. Martí Sentañes, Esther. “Arquitectura e identidad catalanas en Cagliari: elementos para nuevas propuestas culturales”, RiMe. Rivista dell’Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea, 18 (2017): 125–156. At least, this is what emerges from my cursory survey of published archaeological outputs in the last four decades. I look forward to be proven wrong. Milanese, Marco. “Alghero catalana: prospettive storiografiche dall’archeologia medievale”, Sardegna Catalana…: 347–372.

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of historical economy sees the development of models to reconstruct the socio-economic impact of Catalan presence and rule in Sardinia17. However, the lack of archaeological and environmental records hampers our ability to assess these models given that a number of fundamental questions remain open such as, for example, which conditions were in place before and during most of the second millennium AD, and how and why these may have changed, and so on and so forth. Whether Phoenicians, Arabs, Pisans or Catalans, there seem to be a connecting thread throughout the history of ‘encounters’ in Sardinia. Perhaps, this may be the idea of an insulam frumenti feracissima, as Sardinia was known in classical times18. On the one side, there is a perception of Sardinia as a resource, an appealing pray for others, but not necessarily a source to ignite local development and social complexity. This crucial dichotomy, one might argue, has shaped understanding of, and approaches to, the past as well as narratives about the present – and, to a certain extent, it continues to do so –, as discussed in the next section.

3. The present in the past ‘…bisogna render onore al merito, e un merito assai onorevole negli abitanti di X*** era quello di obliare a tempo e luogo i disgraziati che destavano le loro chiacchere. Perché?… Ca su tempus cancellat d’ogni ardore.’19

A certain emphasis on the persistence of settlement from late prehistoric times is found in both studies of sub-regions or particular landscapes20, 17 John Day, for example, traced the roots of modern rural poverty in the ‘colonial domination’ imposed by the Catalans, with unequal exchange structures and feudal import institutions, see “Terres, marches et monnaies en Italie et en Sardaigne du XIIème au XVIIIème siècle”, Histoire, économie et société, 2/2 (1983): 197–203. 18 Appiano, de Bellis Civilibus, II. 19 Deledda, Grazia. Fior di Sardegna. Sesto San Giovanni: Casa Editrice Madella, 1917: 12. 20 E.g. Milanese, Marco. “Paesaggi rurali e luoghi di potere nella Sardegna medievale”, Archeologia Medievale, 36 (2010): 247–258; Stiglitz, Antonio. “Un’isola meticcia: le molte identità della Sardegna antica”, Bollettino di Archeologia on line, A/A3/32/1 (2010): 16–38.

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as well as case studies on specific sites21. Such tradition of studies, somewhat marginal in the archaeological literature of the 19th and mid-20th centuries, has been increasing over the last decades through research on historical landscapes22. Continuity and analogy are not restricted to settlement dynamics but also concerns forms of habitation. For examples, the traditional circular hut used by shepherds has been linked to forms and building materials of the Nuragic period. Yet, reference to detailed features and relevant archaeological records are virtually absent. Indeed, Jean M. Poisson, drawing from studies on medieval and modern architecture as well as archaeological evidence from Nuragic structures, argues against architectural elements recognised as indicators of continuity between modern ‘traditional’ structures and Nuragic examples23. Another main theme concerns abandonment and depopulation. On these phenomena, early considerations linking the impact of raids on the coast by external peoples24, pushing indigenous communities to move inland appear today marginal to the debates. This is because archaeological research on abandonment and demographic change seems largely concerned with a specific historical period: the demographic drop of the medieval period. The causes, dynamics, and archaeological records of these phenomena are beyond the scope of this chapter. What matters here is the historiography of research on this theme, and if this has shaped approaches to, and understandings of, past and present conditions. In brief, the phenomenon of the so-called villaggi abbandonati has a rich

21

E.g. Spano, Giovanni. “Antichità di Sestu”, BAS, V/7 (1859): 101–102; “Chiesa cattedrale dell’antica Bisarcio”, BAS, VI/6 (1860): 81–91. Milanese, Marco. “Campagne di ricognizione archeologica dei villaggi abbandonati di Chiaramonti”, Aidu Entos, I (2007): 45; Milanese, Marco. Benente, Fabrizio. Campus, Franco. “Il progetto Geridu. Indagini archeologiche di un villaggio abbandonato della Sardegna”, Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia dell’Università di Sassari, 1 (2009): 120–128. Delussu, Fabrizio. “Nuraghe Mannu (Dorgali, NU): scavi sull’abitato tardo-romano e altomedievale”, Fasti Online, 165 (2009): 1–13. 22 For example, see recent contributions in Sa massaria: ecologia storica dei sistemi di lavoro contadino in Sardegna, Giovanni Serreli et al., eds. Cagliari: Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea del CNR, 2017: 2 Vols. 23 Poisson, Jean Michel. “La maison rurale médiévale en Sardaigne: un atelier d’ethnoarchéologie”, Památky Archeologické – Ruralia, IV/15 (2002): 232–239. 24 E.g., Spano, Giovanni. “Descrizione dell’antica citta di Sulcis”, BAS, III/5–6 (1857): 77–81.

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and complex scholarship25, so much so that today one might recognise a distinct subfield of studies in between history and archaeology. Albeit today discordant views on causes and dynamics are increasing, in the last decades the debate on the abandonment or disappearance of villages in medieval Sardinia seems limited to two main factors: epidemics and conflicts (internal ones or with the outside)26. Detailed studies on the number of villages and chronology of abandonment are growing in parallel with efforts to assess the impact of such changes in trade networks or on the geopolitical equilibrium of the contemporary Mediterranean basin. Climatic and environmental conditions, instead, remain almost completely overlooked against a rich litterature on the wider western Mediterranean basis27, which illustrates – often at great level of detail– the occurrence of important climatic changes before, during and after the period allegedly associated with demographic dip and the disappearance of several villages. However, climatic and environmental aspects feature in the investigative efforts of 19th century-scholars, when knowledge about past climate and environments was scant to say the least. This is, for example, the case of Torres, once the capital of the north-eastern Sardinian Giudicato that was gradually abandoned since the 12th century.

25 See, e.g., Vita e morte dei villaggi rurali tra Medioevo ed età moderna, Marco Milanese, ed. Firenze: All’Insegna del Giglio, 2006. 26 See, e.g., Day, John. “Mathus démenti? Sous-peuplement chronique et calamités démographiques en Sardaigne du bas Moyen Âge”, Annales. Économie, Sociétés, Civilisations, 30/4 (1975): 684–709. Spano, Giovanni. “Iscrizione sarda di Todorache”, BAS, I/9–10 (1855): 142–148. Relevant here is also Campus, Franco G. “L’insediamento medievale in Sardegna. Dal problema storiografico al percorso della ricerca”, Quaderni Bolotanesi, XXXIV/34 (2008): 91–110, assessing research on settlement patterns in medieval Sardinia and the implications for understanding the villaggi abbandonati phenomenon. Regrettably, though, environmental conditions, landscapes or climate associated with the abandonment are of no concern here too. Yet, there is room for the fierce critique to traditional approaches to the topic, calling for multidisciplinary engagement. However, this falls short within the same trap, being as it is part of an insightful essay that, nevertheless, remains grounded on the written source and historical toponomatics. 27 For full references, see Sulas, Federica. “Verso un’ecologia storica del paesaggio rurale in Sardegna”, Sa massaria: Ecologia storica dei sistemi di lavoro contadino in Sardegna…: 23–80.

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On this demographic decrease, Giovanni Spano28 considered the relations between the worsening of competition for control over Torres’ region and associated political friction between local and external powers with climate change. The latter, in fact, is associated with the gradual onset of instable climatic contions. Spano argued that these conjunctures were at the core of a slow depopulation since the 12th century and until the 15th century. By recognising a nexus betweeen climatic change and settlement dynamics, Spano’s model illustrates an innovative and progressive thinking that accounts for the specific context from different viewpoints: historical, archaeological, environmental and climatic ones. Over a century later, there is now ample evidence for increasing temperature and rainfall over the northern emisphere during the medieval period, including several records from the Mediterranean basin29. Yet, we still do not know (and either consider) what was the impact of such climate change in Sardinia and its influence on the demographic decline.

4. Concluding remarks: archaeology for Sardinia’s blue-sky future? The relation between archaeology and identity in Sardinia is a complex theme: not merely because of its ramifications and potential implications, but also and crucially because of a lack of historiographical debate. The implications of such lack, though hard even to sketch for archaeology, might be quite significant. Indeed, this is well illustrated by the transformative impact of recent epistemological and historiographic works30, which have begun showing the fragility of long-held views about Sardinia’s past. If a historiography of archaeology in and on Sardinia is beyond our 28 Spano, Giovanni. “Nome, sito e descrizione dell’antica citta di Torres”, BAS, II/9–10 (1856): 138–147. 29 This period is known as Medieval Climatic Anomaly (or Optimum), characterised by higher temperatures and rainfall recorded across several regions worldwide, including western Mediterranean in the 10th-13th centuries. See references in Sulas, Federica. “Verso un’ecologia storica…”. 30 See, e.g., Gallinari, Luciano. “Dieci anni di storiografia sulla Sardegna catalana”; “Reflections on Byzantine Sardinia …”: 83–107.

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reach, a cursory survey of archaeological literature does at least provide an opportunity to put forward some remarks. First, it is increasingly apparent that the relationship between ‘the indigenous’ and the external world has a specific portrait in archaeological literature: a conflict-based, one-way relationship. Whether lamenting robbery of antiquities or theorising on chronic poverty, there always seems to be an ‘other’ who operates, acts and dismantles over local landscapes, resources, powers and peoples. The few subtleties smoothing the edges of the portrait, such as Arabs’ contribution to medieval church architecture or Pisan input into the development of trade, appear to be marginal. Even during the period of perhaps most-celebrated autonomy, under the Giudicati, the historical-archaeological narrative often focuses on the influence of external factors from Pisan counsellors of the judges to ceramics from central Italy, to mention but two examples. In this context, a significant portion of field archaeology is devoted almost exclusively to investigating the disappearance of medieval villages, while deskwork focuses on integrating the record from land registers with findings from the excavation. We write, publish and develop new schools of thoughts borrowing from old theses, but always and in any case on the medieval settlement pattern. What were the environment and the landscapes that hosted the troubled medieval centuries? How can we reconcile the break expressed by the villaggi abbandonati with prolonged contiguity of settlement, and persistence of patters? At present, these questions appear of no concern. Besides the specific case, certain archaeological literature shows a tendency to perceive continuity between past and present in a conservative way, almost as if portraying a traditional and static Sardinia: an island that receives peoples and cultures; shepherds living in the same regions (uplands and hills) since prehistory31, farmers busy growing cereals, pulses and vineyards in flatlands and coastal plains. In a snap-shoot reading such as this one, it becomes very difficult to reconcile phenomena of integration and conflict, settlement and depopulation, which nonetheless occurred throughout in the island’s history. On the other side, as mentioned earlier, the presence of strong analogies between different historical times, and between the past and the present, is a matter of fact. In an attempt at 31 See Blake, Emma. “Sardinia’s Nuraghi: Four Millennia of Becoming”, World Archaeology, 30/1 (1998): 59–71, “Identity-mapping in the Sardinian Bronze Age”, European Journal of Archaeology, 2/1 (1999): 35–44.

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moving toward an integrative, blue-sky perspective, one might consider the meaning and perception of ‘tradition’ and emphasise the dynamic, permeable and transformative properties of many ‘traditions’ worldwide. Perhaps, it is precisely in regions such as Sardinia, where people meet, and historical processes intertwine across geographical diversity and over long periods, that the evolving nature of traditions can be best appreciated.

5. Acknowledgements Most of the thinking behind this chapter was stimulated by many discussions held in the back quarter of the ISEM and often followed up oversea. I am deeply grateful to Luciano Gallinari, far beyond for his leadership in the E pluribus unum project and this volume. Luciano has been a challenging mentor with an acute critical eye and astute insights, providing essential fuel to my learning. I also thank for discussion and teaching Alex Metcalfe, Giovanni Serreli and Esther Martí Sentañes.

Luciano Gallinari CNR – Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea

The Sardinian giudici between historical memory and identity. A matter of longue durée?

Through some case studies regarding the period of the ninth to fifteenth centuries, we would like to dwell on some examples of historical memory and identity of the Sardinian giudici, the construction – and interpolation – of which we may glimpse through the few known island sources of a historical period much used to develop the identity profile of twenty-first-century Sardinia as well. The theme appears connected to the law of succession, upon which these island rulers sought to base the authority exercised over their “States,” in order to counter the increasingly intrusive actions of political subjects from outside the island during the second half of the eleventh century.

1. Sardinian identity of Byzantine roots After annexation to the Byzantine Empire, for some centuries Sardinia was governed by a variety of civilian and military officials, militari – praeses, dux, consul et dux, ὕπατος καί δοῦξ, απο επάρχων καί δοῦξ Σαρδανίας -, some of which imperially appointed. Then, from the ninth to the eleventh centuries, the island came under the rule of a new figure endowed with the dignitas of iudex / ἄρχων, which refers expressly to the original figure instituted by Justinian I. The dignity of ἄρχων appears in three epigraphs in Greek, dated to the tenth and eleventh centuries. Only the most ancient one (the church of San Giovanni of Assemini), from the second half of the tenth century, makes explicit mention of Τωρχοτορήου ἄρχοντος Σαρδηνίας. The title is identical to that contained

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in a contemporary list of Italic rulers subject to the Empire formally, but de facto independent1. Of the other two inscriptions, deemed later, one (church of Santa Sofia of Villasor) – dated to the late tenth century – mentions Τουρχουτορίου Βάσ[ιλικου] ασπαθάριου and the archon Salusio (perhaps his successor). The adjective ‘Βάσιλικου’ indicates a personal imperial concession of the courly title of protospatharios2. The other epigraph, on the other hand (Sant’Antioco parish church), is deemed later than Mujāhid’s undertaking on the island (1015–1016) and reads Τωρχοτορίου πρωτουσπαθαρίου κα[ί Σα]λουσίου [ἀρχό]ντος. An important element both share is the absence of the geographical area on which the archontes exercised their authority: Sardinia, or only Calari according to some3. Moreover, in the final epigraph, neither the archon’s dignitas nor the adjective “imperial” appear. Considering its material quality and the nature of “exposed” manifesto of the new political identity of the first

1

2

3

Constantini Porphyrogeniti, De Cerimoniis Aulae Byzantinae libri duo, graece et latine e recensione Io. Iac. Reiskii cum eiusdem commentariis integris, Johann Jo. Reisk, ed., Bonn: 1839, I, cap. 48: 690. Besta, Enrico. La Sardegna medioevale. 2 Le istituzioni politiche, economiche, giuridiche e sociali. Bologna: Forni, 1979: II, 46; Cosentino, Salvatore. “Potere e istituzioni nella Sardegna bizantina”, Ai confini dell’impero. Storia, arte e archeologia della Sardegna bizantina, Paola Corrias, Salvatore Cosentino, eds. Cagliari: M&T, 2002: 10. Coroneo, Roberto. “Nuovo frammento epigrafico medioellenico a Sant’Antioco”, Theologica & Historica. Annali della pontificia Facoltà Teologica della Sardegna, 12 (2003): 318 dates this epigraph in the mid-tenth century, rectifying its previous dating to the final quarter of that century. Feniello, Amedeo. “Poteri pubblici nei ducati tirrenici”, Adveniat regnum. La regalità sacra nell’Europa cristiana, Franco Cardini e Maria Saltarelli, eds. Genova: Name, 2000: 327 shows that the independence and autonomy of the various Byzantine centres in Southern Italy concluded in the tenth century, without a total detachment from Byzantium. According to Coroneo, Roberto. “Nuovo frammento epigrafico medioellenico a Sant’Antioco…”: 318–319, this Torcotorio was the archon of Sardinia in the previous epigraph with the added courtly title. Coroneo, Roberto. “Nuovo frammento epigrafico medioellenico a Sant’Antioco…”: 319 e Zedda, Corrado. “I giudici cagliaritani, la diffusione del culto di san Giorgio e la nascita della diocesi di Barbaria/Suelli”, Studi Ogliastrini, 13 (2017): 198.

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archon/giudice of Calari4, it would be necessary to rule out stonemasons’ errors or data deemed superfluous5. Aside from these absences, the Prōtospatharios Torcotorio of the Sant’Antioco epigraph was identified with the first ruler of Calari ‘Torquitoris Kallaritanensis principis regionis’, mentioned in the Life of St. George of Suelli, a problematic source from the early twelfth century containing some references to Sardinian history from the previous century6. This connection between the Life and the Calari giudice was reaffirmed in 1214 by Benedetta of Massa, iudicissa of Calari, in a document in favour of the church of St. George of Suelli, to which we shall return in §6.

4

5

6

For the formal aspect, Cavallo, Guglielmo. “Le tipologie della cultura nel riflesso delle testimonianze scritte”, Bisanzio, Roma e l’Italia nell’Alto Medioevo. Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1988: II, 474–475; Coroneo, Roberto. “Nuovo frammento epigrafico medioellenico a Sant’Antioco…”: 315. On the identification of the first giudice of Calari, Serreli, Giovanni. “Il passaggio all’età Giudicale. Il Caso di Càlari”, Settecento-Millecento. Storia, archeologia e arte nei “secoli bui” del Mediterraneo. Dalle fonti scritte, archeologiche ed artistiche alla ricostruzione della vicenda storica. La Sardegna laboratorio di esperienze culturali, Rossana Martorelli, ed. Cagliari: Scuola Sarda Editrice, 2013: I, 66–81, believes that “in the first half of the tenth century,” the process began of separating from Calari the three “states” of Arborea, Torres e Gallura – even though the archon of Sardinia is attested in the middle of that century – and he proposes as first archon/giudice of Calari the Torcotorio of the Sant’Antioco inscription, after 1015–1016. Zedda, Corrado. Il Giudicato di Cagliari. Storia, società, evoluzione e crisi di un regno sardo. Cagliari: Arkadia, 2017: 14–15 attributes the two epigraphs of Villasor and sant’Antioco to the giudici of Calari, who are said to have used all Greek elements to accentuate the separation from the other three Giudicati. However, for Arborea, there are three Greek seals of archons encompassing at least the entire eleventh century. Pinna, Raimondo. Zedda, Corrado. “San Giorgio, l’evangelizzazione dell’Ogliastra e la nascita dei giudicati”, Biblioteca Francescana Sarda, 12 (2008): 174–175 show that we don’t know when George was consecrated as bishop, or even who were the people who promoted his appointment. According to Zedda, Corrado. “I giudici cagliaritani, la diffusione del culto di san Giorgio…”: 194–195, the saint is ‘a figure with a highly dubious biography’ – since he was bishop in a period when there were no suffragan dioceses of the metropolitan province of Calari – but endowed with ‘truthful elements of historicity.’ These include the reference to his birth during the rule of ‘Torquitoris Kallaritanensis principis regionis’ – who received a miracle from the saint – and the mention of Nispella, the ruler’s wife, also present in the Sant’ Antioco epigraph. See Motzo, Bacchisio R. “La vita e l’ufficio di S. Giorgo vescovo di Barbagia”, Bacchisio R. Motzo, Studi sui Bizantini e sul’agiografia Sarda. Cagliari: Deputazione di Storia Patria, 1987: 19–22.

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In consideration of the above, some elements may help circumscribe the disappearance of the Archonate of Sardinia to a period between about the mid tenth century, and prior to 1058. these elements are: the presumed datings of the epigraphs of the ἄρχων Σαρδηνίας (ca. the mid tenth century) and of Τωρχοτορίου πρωτουσπαθαρίου κα[ί Σα]λουσίου [ἀρχό]ντος (post-1015–1016), and the first indirect but certain mention of a giudice who no longer rules the whole island: Marianus I of Calari7. The only event that could have cast into profound crisis a dynasty that a few decades earlier sent a peace mission to the caliph of Cordova8, obtained Byzantine dignities and in the aforementioned epigraphs claimed its own political status9, appears to be the invasion of Mujāhid (1015–1016). Probably it caused the death of the archon of Sardinia and the unrest and upheaval mentioned in later documents10. 7

According to Zedda, Corrado. “I giudici cagliaritani, la diffusione del culto di san Giorgio…”: 204–210, the Vita Sancti Mamiliani et Sentii, – set in the late fifth but composed towards the late tenth century – bears witness to the existence during that period of a single lord of Sardinia (‘Potestati Sardinie’). On p.  198, however, the author speaks of the Archon Torchitorio of the Greek epigraphs dated between the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, as founder of the Giudicato of Calari, which would mean there were others too. See note 5. Costantino-Salusio II of Calari (1089–1103) speaks of ‘auu meu iudiki Mariani’: in the “Greek charter” of Marseille (1081–1089) with the important donations to the monks of Saint-Victor de Marseille, the result of acceptance of Gregory VII’s Church reform. Turtas, Raimondo. “I giudici sardi del secolo XI: da Giovanni Francesco Fara, a Dionigi Scano e alle Genealogie medioevali di Sardegna”, Studi Sardi, 33 (2000): 255–257. 8 Renzi Rizzo, Catia. ‘I rapporti diplomatici fra il re Ugo di Provenza e il califfo ‘Abd ar-Ramân III: fonti cristiane e fonti arabe a confronto’, Reti Medievali. Rivista, III/2 (2002), . 9 With regard to the issue of the socio-political identity representation of the archons through epigraphy, the considerations in this volume by María Andrea Tapia and Horacio Casal are extremely pertinent. For them, the architecture for building identity and cultural values must be interpreted by the user, which is to say it must start from elements anchored in the local culture. Therefore, anyone who observes the Sardinian epigraphs – at least anyone who belongs to the higher and more cultured classes – must be able to read the Greek alphabet and understand what the dignitas of archon and the dignified title of Prōtospatharios mean. In substance, he or she must be endowed with Greek culture. 10 Zedda, Corrado. Pinna, Raimondo. “La carta del giudice cagliaritano Orzocco Torchitorio, prova dell’attuazione del progetto gregoriano di riorganizzazione della giurisdizione ecclesiastica della Sardegna”, Archivio Storico Giuridico Sardo di Sassari, 10 (2009): 50.

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Despite the problematic nature of the Life of St. George, the identification of Τωρχοτορίου πρωτουσπαθαρίου / Torquitoris Kallaritanensis principis might be confirmed by some considerations as to the political identity “exposed” in the aforementioned epigraph, also taking its dating into account. It might be of the “manifested” type that is shown explicitly at particular moments, since it selects only some significant elements of the “experienced” identity, that respond to situations of opposing and conflicting nature11. In this case, perhaps, these situations could be the formation of other power centres (Giudicati) on the island, and the beginning of the presence in Sardinia of Western powers – Genoa, Pisa and the Apostolic See – after the expulsion of Mujāhid due to the disappearance/fragmentation of the Archonate. Even from these elements alone, it emerges that at least the leadership class of the future Giudicati of Calari and Arborea in the early eleventh century had a clear Greek framework and looked to the Byzantine world to obtain recognition and political and institutional legitimacy from the only universal authority that its juridical culture recognized, on a par with the contemporary rules of Byzantine origin in Southern Italy. These elements come on top of all the others of material and immaterial culture present on the island from the sixth century on, attested to by a broad scientific literature, for some of which reference is to be made to §312.

11 Fabietti, Ugo. L’identità etnica. Storia e critica di un concetto equivoco. Roma: La Nuova Italia Scientifica, 1995: 139. This is an ‘identity produced by the subjects concerned [….] immediately understood by subjects’ who do not need ‘to consciously select the features which, according to them, are the membership criteria’ (Si tratta di una ‘identità prodotta dai soggetti interessati […] immediatamente colta dai soggetti’ che non necessitano ‘selezionare in modo cosciente i tratti che essi ritengono costituire i criteri di appartenenza’). 12 All this makes it even less understandable the statements of Martin, Jean-Marie. “Les actes sardes (XIe-XIIe siècle)”, L’héritage Byzantin en Italie (VIIIe-XIIe siècle). I La fabrique documentaire, Jean-Marie Martin, Annick Peters-Custot, Vivien Prigent., eds. Rome: École Francaise de Rome, 2011: 191 and 194, who still supports the idea of the island’s geographical isolation, and the considerations of Prigent, Vivien. “L’usage du sceau de plomb dans les régions italiennes de tradition byzantine au Haut Moyen-Áge”, L’héritage Byzantin en Italie (VIIIe-XIIe siècle…: 223–224, according to whom Sardinia was ‘pauvre, isolée et peu ou mal hellénisée’.

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2. Elements of Greek and Latin identity of the early giudici The Byzantine nature of the Sardinian leadership class is confirmed by a number of sources, also after their entry into a Western political and institutional orbit. The Calari giudici Orzocco-Torchitorio I (1058–1089) and his son Costantino-Salusio II (1089–1103, ἄρχων μερείας Καράλεος) claimed their institutional status as descendents of the island’s sole ancient ruler by “translating” ἄρχων Σαρδενίας with Rex Sardiniae – and thus not institutionally. In this case, in fact, the term would have been – as it was – iudex, which succeeded the earlier one for a few centuries. From the start of their identity story, they gave themselves the dignitas (and therefore the social identity) of king, a figure foreign to Byzantine institutional culture but not to the Western one into whose orbit they began to gravitate. However, they specified that they concretely exercised their authority over: ‘parte de Caralis’, in the documents, and ‘μερείας Καράλεος’ in the seals. The terms ‘part’ and ‘μερείας’ literally expressed how Caralis for them was concretely only a “Parte” of the ancient island Archonate. At that same time, a similar cultural inheritance is attested in the Giudicato of Arborea by three Greek seals typologically similar to the Calari counterparts, except for the absence in them of the term μερείας13. The Zerkis one is deemed to be the most ancient and is dated to between the tenth and early eleventh century.14. The other two are held to 13 Zucca, Raimondo. “Zerkis, iudex arborensis”, Giudicato d’Arborea e Marchesato di Oristano: proiezioni mediterranee e aspetti di storia locale, Giampaolo Mele, ed. Oristano: S’Alvure, 2000: II, 1109–1111, proposed identifying the seal of Ζερκις ἄρχων with the giudice Çerkis, from sheet 66 of the Condaghe of S. Maria of Bonarcado, dated before 1065. To this he adds that Zerkis’ title was ‘to be understood without question as of the region of Arborea (mereias Arbor(eas),’ even though the Arborea seal does not contain this term. See Il Condaghe di Santa Maria di Bonarcado, Maurizio Virdis, ed. Cagliari: Centro di Studi Filologici Sardi, 2002: 35. Zedda, Corrado. “Le Carte Volgari cagliaritane: prime acquisizioni da un riesame comparativo”, Notiziario Archivio Storico Diocesano Cagliari, 20 (2012): 9–13. 14 Pinna, Raimondo. Zedda, Corrado. “San Giorgio, l’evangelizzazione dell’Ogliastra …”: 166–167 proposed identifying this archon with the Serchis from the Life of St. George of Suelli, thought to be the brother of the Calari giudice Marianus I (before 1058). He, moreover, was said to have been an ‘archon of the giudice residing in Cagliari,’ which is to say a lociservator in accordance with an old theory on the origin of the Giudicati. The hypothesis appears unlikely for several reasons:

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be from the second half of the eleventh century: Ο[ρ]ζόκορ (I de Zori), mentioned by Gregory VII in 1073, and Τορβέννιος, perhaps the giudice in some early twelfth-century texts15. The absence of the term ‘μερείας’ in the three Arborea seals cannot be an oversight: the Torbeno one dates to a time when the independence of the giudice of Arborea from other island authorities was undisputed16. Said omission might be a declaration of political and institutional identity of the Arborea archontes independent of outside authorities: the Archontate of Sardinia (if it still existed, in the case of the Zerkis seal, the oldest) or of Calari, which claimed its inheritance17. Perhaps it was as took place for the Greek epigraphs as well, for which see note 11.

1) the extremely problematic nature of the hagiographic source; 2) if Serchis/ Ζερκις had been the sub-archon of a region of the Giudicato of Calari, his seal would have had to indicate this legal status, also because his status as being from Calari, according to these two scholars, was then actually at risk of secessions, perhaps at the hand of members of the same family of giudici; 3) the other two seals that may be attributed to the Archonate/Giudicato of Arborea are typologically identical to that of Ζερκις. It is hard to believe that an institutional change at that level did not require a change of title, and therefore of seal – as in the aforementioned seals that cited the Parte / μερεία with respect to the broader institution of reference that was the ancient Archonate / Regnum of Sardinia. 15 Zucca, Raimondo. “Il castello di Laconi e le origini del Giudicato d’Arborea”, La civiltà giudicale in Sardegna nei secoli XI-XIII. Fonti e documenti scritti, Sassari: Associazione Condaghe S. Pietro di Silki 2002: 125; Spanu, Pier Giorgio. Zucca, Raimondo. I sigilli bizantini della ΣΑΡΔΕΝΙΑ. Roma: Carocci, 2004: 31 and 145–146. Spanu, Pier Giorgio. Fois, Piero. Zanella, Renato. Zucca, Raimondo. “L’Arcontato d’Arborea tra Islam ed eredità bizantina”, Tharros Felix, 5, Antonello Mastino, Pier Giorgio Spanu, Raimondo. Zucca, eds. Roma: Carocci, 2013: 529. 16 Gallinari, Luciano. “Reflections on Byzantine Sardinia between seventh and eleventh centuries in the light of recent historiographical proposal”, Bilanci e prospettive storiografiche, Maria Giuseppina Meloni, Anna Maria Oliva, Olivetta Schena, eds. Roma: Viella, 2015: 89–91. 17 Gallinari, Luciano. Les Judicats en Sardaigne: une différente typologie de royauté médièvale?, Thése Doctorale, Paris: EHESS, 2009: 94–95. The arbitrary addition of the term μερείας to the Arborea’s seals no longer appears in Panico, Barbara. Spanu, Pier Giorgio. Zucca, Raimondo. “Civitates Sancti Marci, Sancti Augustini, Sancti Salvatoris, et oppida Domu de Cubas, Sancti Saturnini, Sancti Georgii in saltibus de Sinnis”, Itinerando. Senza Confini dalla Preistoria ad oggi. Studi in ricordo di Roberto Coroneo, Rossana Martorelli, ed. Perugia: Morlacchi, 2015: I, 460.

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3. Byzantine cultural identity in Giudicati’s chanceries The long persistence of Byzantine culture in the Sardinian one, even after contacts with the empire came to an end, is confirmed by some Greek elements. These include some similarities in document structure between the first documents of the Giudicato of Calari – the one longest faithful to Byzantine traditions – and some Greek parchments from Sicily18, such as the use, as late as the thirteenth century, of the Oriental-style deprecatory formulas that spread in the West as early as the sixth century, especially in the Invocatio to the Trinity and in the Minatio (with the anathemas of God and the Saints against those in breach of the document)19. In addition to these elements was the use, with different modes and tones, of the Greek alphabet (but the island’s language) in two “Sardinian charters” of the Giudicato of Calari at the turn of the twelfth century20, and the employment of the Greek language and alphabet in seals: in Calari until the thirteenth century, and in Arborea until the early twelfth21. The Greek language is also hypothesized for the Carte Volgari Cagliaritane, the thirteenth-century copies of which would have graphic signs to facilitate reading for non-Latin-speaking users22. All elements were used to reaffirm a political and cultural identity vis-à-vis authorities outside the Island, and in particular the Apostolic See which claimed dominium eminens over Sardinia. 18 Casula, Francesco Cesare. “Sulle origini delle Cancellerie giudicali sarde”, and “Influenze catalane nella Cancelleria giudicale arborense nel secolo XII: i sigilli”, Studi di Paleografia e Diplomatica, Padova: Cedam, 1974: 1–99; and 101–117. 19 Zucca, Raimondo. “Le formule deprecatorie nell’epigrafia cristiana in Sardegna”, Le sepolture in Sardegna dal IV al VII secolo. IV Convegno sull’archeologia tardo-romana e medievale (Cuglieri, 27–28 giugno 1987), Oristano: S’Alvure, 1990: 211–214. 20 Soddu, Alessandro. Crasta, Paola. Strinna, Giovanni. “Un’inedita carta sardo-greca del XII secolo nell’Archivio Capitolare di Pisa”, Bollettino di Studi sardi, 3 (2010): 5–42. 21 According to Ferrarotti, Franco. Il silenzio della parola. Tradizione e memoria in un mondo smem­orato. Bari: Dedalo, 2003: 70–73, the language is the essential strong link of a chain that allows us not to lose contact with our own origins. Moreover, ‘the cognitive categories mediated by the language allow to give meaning to past events’. 22 Cau, Ettore. “Peculiarità e anomalie della documentazione sarda tra XI e XIII secolo”, Giudicato d’Arborea e Marchesato di Oristano…: I, 313–405.

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4. From Praeses (Iudex) to Giudici: the election procedures of Byzantine origin Another example of Byzantine identity is the substantial equality of the procedures for electing the sixth-century praeses / iudex provinciae and the giudici of Logudoro and Calari in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, although more than half a millennium separates them. All were elected by bishops, their suffragans, and the leaders of the territory to be administered23. Highly interesting is the reference by Benedetta of Calari (1214–1233) to Pope Honorius III on the legal traditions which – ‘more solito’ – regulated the election to the Giudicato’s throne24. The disapparance for more than two centuries of the dignitas of iudex from the sources on early Medieval Sardinia – late sixth century (Gregory the Great)– late ninth century (Liber Pontificalis) – does not automatically mean the disappearance of the ancient civil governor as well. The reappearance in the sources of a Iudex / ἄρχων leading Sardinia – chosen from among the island’s oligarchy, in accordance with Justinian’s orders – was able to obviate the difficult bonds with Byzantium that prompted new needs for autonomy. The aforementioned elective traditions might have survived over time or been reintroduced. This second circumstance took place when there was still a single “state” (Archonate/Giudicato, depending on the sources) – perhaps in the ninth century – as the contemporary use in the Giudicati of Calari and Logudoro would lead one to think. The reintroduction would have been an operation of cultural memory – based upon traditions/ sources (or both) that attested to the existence of the ancient dignitas and the procedure for conferring it.

23 Libellus Judicum Turritanorum. A cura di Antonio Sanna. Introduzione di Alberto Boscolo, Cagliari: S’Ischiglia, 1957: 45–46. For a sui generis interpretation of the Sardinian judges’ ordo electionis we refer to Gallinari, Luciano. “Some criticalities on exegetical and methodological issues of researching the Sardinian identity profile”: 7; note 19 of this book. 24 Tola, Pasquale. Codice Diplomatico della Sardegna, I/1, Sassari: Delfino editore, 1984: 329–331.

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5. Genealogical memory of the early Sardinian giudici According to the most trustworthy sources, we can attest that before 1058, Marianus-Salusio I was giudice of Calari, and that in 1063 Barisone I was giudice / rex of Torres. We have already pointed out that, from the first documents, the island’s judges were committed in various ways to presenting themselves as kings of their own “states,” basing their authority not only on divine right, but on the law of succession as well. Constantine-Salusio II ‘gratia Dei rex et iudex calaritanus’ authored a document dated 30 June 1089, which is highly stimulating from this standpoint, confirming the donation of two churches to the monks of Saint-Victor de Marseille. In this document, he quotes his father – his immediate predecessor – ‘Arzo rex et iudex kalaritanus’ and his future successor ‘Marianus rex et iudex filius suprascripti Constantini’25. The repetition, in three generations of rulers, of the two dignitates – that of rex always first – highlighted that they did not consider them equivalent, but cumulable, and reinforced the dynasty’s authority through time26. It was an image further cemented by the giudice’s son’s association with power, as was done perhaps by the Archons of Sardinia (§1) and the contemporary “Byzantine” rulers of Southern Italy27.

25 Tola, Pasquale. Codice Diplomatico della Sardegna, I/1: 160–161. See my first considerations on this phase of institutional “accreditation” of the Sardinian giudici and above all of the Calari ones: Gallinari, Luciano. “Il Giudicato di Calari tra XI e XIII secolo. Proposte di interpretazioni istituzionali”, RiMe. Rivista dell’Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea, 5 (2010): 147–188. 26 According to Zerubavel, Eviatar. Mappe del tempo. Memoria collettiva e costruzione sociale del passato. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2005: 102–108, the intergenerational transitivity allows diverse elements, ‘generationally adjacent (fathers-sons […])’ and arranged in a line of succession, to become a source of status and legitimacy. 27 Tola, Pasquale. Codice Diplomatico della Sardegna: I/1: 164. The first attempt by the rulers of Amalfi to establish the dynastic principle was made with the prefect Marinus and his son Pulcari (859–873). The final affirmation, however, took place in the first half of the tenth century, with the dynasty of Mansone Fusilis (898–958). Cfr. Feniello, Amedeo. “Poteri pubblici nei ducati tirrenici”, Adveniat regnum. La regalità sacra nell’Europa cristiana, Franco Cardini, Maria Saltarelli, eds. Genova: Name, 2000: 330.

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6. Dynastic memory and the law of succession: Arborea and Calari The law succession as a source of authority was also present in later Giudicato documents not destined for authorities outside the island. In 1146/1147, on the occasion of the consecration of the ‘Clesia nova’ of the monastery of Santa Maria of Bonarcado, Barisone I of Arborea explicitly stated he based his power in the Giudicato upon hereditary law, without referring to authorities outside the island – the Church of Rome, or the Empire: ‘Ego judice Barusone de Serra potestando Locu de Arborea faço custa carta […] pro anima mea et de parentes meos daunde lu cognosco su regnu de Arbore’. The giudice’s reference to his predecessors in the presence of Villano, archbishop of Pisa and Apostolic legate, at a historical moment when the Church was increasingly augmenting its political influence on the island, was perhaps a message to the pope through his representative28. It is to be recalled that Barisone I showed he had a broad project of politics and identity: united by marriage with the Catalan area (1157) and crowned King of Sardinia by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa (1164): the only royal title of a Sardinian giudice that was valid according to Western Late-Medieval law. The political action was supposed to protect him from papal interference but did not yield positive results. An additional example of the historical memory that the giudici of Arborea possessed and cultivated with political purposes was, almost a century later, the donation by Peter II of Arborea (1221–1241) to the Monastery of Santa Maria of Bonarcado, in which he cited, in descending order, four generations of his predecessors, going back more than a century. It was always a selective memory in its reconstruction, because the ruler failed to mention Peter I and Barisone II, co-rulers with his father, but did cite Constantine I (1119–1133), his son Comita III (1133–1146), Barisone I (1147–1185), and lastly, his father Hugh I of Bas Serra (1185– 1195)29. 28 Il Condaghe di Santa Maria di Bonarcado: 190. 29 Ferrarotti, Franco. Il silenzio della parola: 31–32 stresses that memory, by conserving the ‘image of the past (…) also creates growth, and guarantees the future’.

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Almost at the same time, the sources show an interesting case of historical memory in the Giudicato of Calari as well, regarding the dynasty of the local rulers, albeit in a problematic exegetical context. In June of 1214, Benedetta iudicissa of Calari made some concessions to the church of St. George of Suelli: into the document – drafted shortly after the death of her father, the giudice William of Massa – she inserted the episode of the miracle worked by the Saint to princeps Torchitorius. He is identified with the Torcotorio of the Sant’Antioco epigraph and deemed the founder of the Calari rulers in the early eleventh century (§1). This episode appears to be a foundation myth with a dual value. For the writer of the first part of the Life – perhaps almost a contemporary with the events (late tenth – early eleventh centuries) –, the reference to princeps Torchitorius and his wife Nispella would have historicized the Saint’s biography, making it real and trustworthy30. With these characteristics, the Life was to be enlarged and corroborated by additional episodes supported by other historical figures. This was done in 1117, a historical era quite different from that of George and Torchitorio, by the presumed author Paolo, perhaps a monk at Saint-Victor de Marseille. His purpose was probably that the Life was the basis for the prestige and authority of the diocese of Suelli, the creation of which came after the Saint31. On the other hand, a century later, in 1214, for the iudicissa Benedetta, the connection between San Giorgio and the princeps Torchitorius was to be the medium linking her dynasty (the Marquises of Massa) to the “ancestors” – the original Calari giudici, prestigious also because they were beneficiaries of a divine miracle in the presence of their initiator32. 30 Zedda, Corrado. “I giudici cagliaritani, la diffusione del culto di san Giorgio…”: 202 speaks of a ‘transference of memory’ between the giudice Guglielmo di Massa, father of Benedetta and Orzocco Torchitorio I (1058–1081) and, shortly thereafter, cites a ‘cultural transference’ that he says united both to the archon Torcotorio. However, a few lines later, he states that Benedetta placed her father alongside the ‘giudice Orzocco [Torchitorio I], his eleventh-century ancestor and founder of the dynasty,’ since both were initially bad Christians. 31 Pinna, Raimondo. Zedda, Corrado. “San Giorgio, l’evangelizzazione dell’Ogliastra…: 175–178. Recently, Zedda, Corrado. “I giudici cagliaritani, la diffusione del culto di san Giorgio…”: 201 hypothesizes that there might be an anonymous author ‘who wrote much of the Life in 1117,’ and the aforementioned Paolo who concluded the work at a later time. 32 Zerubavel, Eviatar Mappe del tempo…: 78 points out that ‘‘‘through […] human bridges like these [with the ancestors] (…), collective entities such as cities or families are regenerated, in their apparent continuity’.

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Given this state of affairs – whether both cases are a founding myth, or a link to prestigious ancestors –, the circumstance by which the religious Paolo and the iudicissa Benedetta were linked to Torquitoris Kallaritanensis principis regionis / Τωρχοτορίου πρωτουσπαθαρίου might confirm that he was the initiator of the dynasty of the giudici of Calari, which continued to wield power in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. (§1: 3–5)33. Both episodes – the writing of the Life and the use of the miracle – appear to be two “hot” recollections of prior events (it is of little importance whether or not they were historical, since they became myth), from which their authors obtained elements for an image of themselves (the Church for the Diocese of Suelli and the Iudicissa for the dynasty) and points upon which to pin hopes and objectives for the future34.

7. A founding myth of the late Giudicati Age During the last two centuries of the Middle Ages, the political, institutional, and cultural framework changed totally from the periods examined earlier. In it, only Western political subjects appeared, prominent among which was the Regnum Sardinie et Corsice enfeoffed by Pope Boniface VIII to King James II of Aragon on 04 April 129735. Legally within it was the Giudicato of Arborea, the final institutional heir of the ancient archontate of Sardinia, until its disappearance in 1420.

33 We reject the hypothesis that this was the giudice Orzocco Torchitorio I (see note 30), since he had a wife named Vera de Lacon and before him there was at least one other giudice, his father Marianus-Salusius, attested before 1058 (§1). Therefore, he was not the founder of the dynasty. 34 According to Assmann Jan. La memoria culturale. Scrittura, ricordo e identità politica nelle grandi civiltà antiche. Torino: Einaudi, 1997: 50–51, the myth has two functions: the first is the “founding” one, that attributes to the present a sense ‘that makes it appear endowed with sense, desired by God, necessary and immutable’; the second, anti-present, by the shortcomings of the present (of which who remembers), evokes ‘a past that for the most part takes on the traits of a heroic age’. 35 Sardegna catalana . Anna Maria Oliva, Olivetta, Schena, coords. Barcelona: Institut d’Estudis Catalans, 2014.

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In the mid-fourteenth century, after about thirty years of peaceful coexistence between Sardinans and the Aragonese, the giudice Marianus IV of Arborea reacted to Peter IV’s harmful policy of increasing political and institutional centralization. The crisis crossed over into war starting in 1353, as part of the clash between the Crown of Aragon and the Commune of Genoa for dominance in the Western Mediterranean36. Catalan sources are the only ones that allow the events’ developments to be reconstructed and cannot be counterbalanced by the particularly scanty Sardinian ones37. During the conflict, in certain cultured environments of the Regnum favourable to Arborea, a complex and articulate political and institutional “discourse” was worked out, aimed at giving them a royal status, through the development of a foundation myth. This “discourse” was for internal Sardinian use, because it would have had difficulty gaining traction in the Crown of Aragon. This foundation myth is found in a precious anonymous source – essentially unique on the island’s landscape38–, which interpolated the history of the eleventh-century Giudicato. Relying on a prior oral tradition, the anonymous chronicle did not seek illustrious ancestors within the island – unlike what took place the century before in the Giudicato of Calari – since they would have been useless. It created a family bond between the rulers from Arborea and the Navarrese royal family, through an unknown princess shipwrecked on Sardinia’s eastern coastline in the mid-eleventh century39. This tradition was handed down explicitly as a myth (in the literal, Greek sense of the word: “story”) for the foundation of the dynasty of the giudici of Arborea40. 36 Gallinari, Luciano. Una dinastia in guerra e un re descurat? I giudici d’Arborea e Giovannni I re d’Aragona (1379–1396). Cagliari: Istituto di Storia dell’Europa mediterranea del CNR, 2013 and the bibliography therein. 37 Gallinari, Luciano. “Ethnic identity in medieval Sardinia: rethinking and reflecting on 14th and 15th century examples”, Perverse Identities. Identities in conflict, Flocel Sabaté, ed. Bern: Peter Lang, 2015: 82–83. 38 Memoria de las cosas que han aconteçido en algunas partes del reino de Cerdeña, Paolo Maninchedda, ed. Cagliari: CUEC, 2000. 39 Farae, Iohannis Francisci. ‘De Rebus Sardois’, Opera, Enzo Cadoni, ed. Sassari: Gallizzi, 1992: 2, lib. II, 322 dates to 1052 the arrival of the Navarrese in the area of Capo San Marco del Sinis, near Tharros and to 1070 the transfer of the Giudicato’s capital from there to Oristano. 40 Gallinari, Luciano. “An important political discourse pro-Judicate of Arborea drawn up in the capital of the Catalan-Aragonese Regnum Sardinie et Corsice (14th-15th c.)”,

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Highly significant from this standpoint was the period chosen to link the giudici of Arborea to the royal dynasty of Navarre: it allowed the Sardinian rulers to claim a royal status more ancient than that of the Aragonese sovereigns which, moreover, originated from the Navarrese dynasty, the holder of what at that time was the Contado of Aragon41. A historical memory of this kind – however interpolated it may be – informs us as to the presence in Sardinia of intellectuals with sufficient knowledge for being able to intertwine elements of the island’s history with eleventh-century Iberian history, which was plausible and politically useful in the fourteenth century.42. It bears mentioning that this political and cultural operation appears as the realization of a “family romance,” not in the precise psychological connotation of the term, since the giudici of Arborea – the initiative’s supposed promoters/beneficiaries, showed, even in the fourteenth century, a proud dynastic memory of themselves and of their royal house43.

Centri di potere nel Mediterraneo occidentale dal Medioevo alla fine dell’Antico Regime, Lluis J. Guia Marin, Maria Grazia R. Mele, Giovanni Serreli, eds. Milano: Franco Angeli, 2017: 65–73. According to Assmann Jan. La memoria culturale…: 48–50 ‘ the past consolidated and internalized as a founding story is myth, entirely apart from the problem of whether it is fictitious or real […], highlights their binding founding nature, the future as something that absolutely must not be forgotten.’ When the founding story “falls into historic time, therefore placing itself at a measurable and growing distance from the present […], it cannot be made current in rights and festivities, but only recollected.” 41 Schiera, Pierangelo. “Dall’identità individuale all’identità collettiva. O piuttosto problemi di legittimazione?”, Identità collettive tra Medioevo ed Età Moderna, Paolo Prodi, Wolfgang Reinhard, eds. Bologna: CLUEB, 2002: 198 stresses that identity can, however, also mean what we would like to be, rather than what we are, thereby further broadening its dimension of artificiality. 42 This entwinement would confirm the retrospective mental process of its makers, aimed essentially at establishing artificial connections. Zerubavel, Eviatar., Mappe del tempo…: 29–30. Ferrarotti, Franco. Il silenzio della parola: 114 mentions Halbwachs, according to which the memory ‘preserves […] images that serve the present and are significant for the continuity of a group’s life’. 43 See Gallinari, Luciano. “Some criticalities on exegetical and methodological issues…”: 19, note 26.

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8. Conclusions The few cases analyzed in this work already cast light on the amount of information on Byzantine and Giudicato Sardinia that can be gleaned through careful reading of the few sources produced on the island. The data offered appear to show – and this is to be stressed – a widespread knowledge in Giudicato Sardinia of the island’s history in the previous centuries, and the use made of it for politics and identity. This might corroborate the hypothesis of the existence not only of a rich heritage of oral history, but also of archives and libraries that held documentary and narrative sources – a heritage that has entirely disappeared. It is a type of investigation we intend to continue, since it helps augment our knowledge of the history of Byzantine and Giudicato-era Sardinia.

Alessandra Cioppi CNR – Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea

The Catalan-Aragonese Regnum Sardiniae et Corsicae and the Giudicato of Arborea in the fourteenth century. An institutional comparison between similarities and differences*

1. Introduction Sardinia has always played a highly prestigious role in the western basin of the Mediterranean Sea, and with its central position, it was an indispensable bastion for an expanding maritime power like the Crown of Aragon at the dawn of the fourteenth1. Thanks to its possession, and not only with regard to the circumstances determined by the War of the Vespers, the Catalan-Aragonese monarchy would manage to secure control over the Mediterranean maritime routes along the route called ruta de las islas, and to open a new provider of resources and a hinterland it had never had2. *

1

2

A first draft was presented at the International Medieval Congress – University of Leeds (Leeds, 3–5 July 2017), in the Session 1339: Forms of Justice, Legal, and Judicial Authority. Giunta, Francesco. Aragonesi e Catalani nel Mediterraneo. Palermo: Manfredi Editore, 1953–59; Del Treppo, Mario. “L’espansione catalano-aragonese nel Mediterraneo”, Nuove questioni di Storia Medioevale, Raffaello Morghen, dir. Milan: Marzorati, 1969: 11, 259–300; Santamaría, Alvaro. “Precisiones sobre la expansión marítima de la Corona de Aragón”, Anales de la Universidad de Alicante. Historia medieval, 8 (1990–91): 187–255; Corrao, Pietro. “Il nodo mediterraneo: Corona d’Aragona e Sicilia nella politica di Bonifacio VIII”, Bonifacio VIII. XXXIX Convegno Storico Internazionale (Todi, 13–16 ottobre 2002). Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sul Basso Medioevo, 2003: 145–170. Arribas Palau, Antonio. La conquista de Cerdeña por Jaime II de Aragón. Barcelona: Instituto Español de Estudios Mediterráneos, 1952; Salavert y Roca, Vicente. Cerdeña y la expansión mediterránea de la Corona de Aragón 1297–1314. Madrid: CSIC, 1956: I, 126; Tangheroni, Marco. “Il Regnum Sardiniae et Corsicae nell’espansione

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This paper aims to overview the institutional/administrative system that the kings of Aragon introduced into the Regnum Sardiniae immediately after the island’s conquest in 1323, and to draw a comparison with the institutional system of the Giudicato of Arborea, the last surviving bulwark of the four local regimes into which the island had been originally divided, and Aragon’s unyielding enemy. Throughout the fourteenth and for much of the fifteenth centuries, there was a clear distinction in Sardinia between the constitutional organization of the territories belonging to the Regnum Sardiniae, subject to the Crown of Aragon, and that of the territories governed by the Giudici of Arborea. For over a century, the boundaries of the two states that had been created – Catalan Sardinia and Giudicato Sardinia – were unstable and subject to continuous changes due to the vicissitudes of a profound disagreement that, arising between the two regimes sharing the island’s limited space, was transformed into a long and exhausting war.

2. Sardinia, Kingdom of the Crown of Aragon After the island’s conquest, the entry of the newly established Regnum Sardiniae et Corsicae into the union of states constituting the Crown of Aragon was theoretically supposed to take place with full respect for its autonomy and with no variations in the territory’s political and administrative order, as had taken place for other kingdoms that had joined the Iberian Confederation3.

3

mediterranea della Corona d’Aragona. Aspetti economici”, La Corona d’Aragona in Italia (secc. XIII-XVIII). XIV Congresso di Storia della Corona d’Aragona (SassariAlghero, 19–24 maggio 1990). Sassari: Carlo Delfino Editore, 1993: I, 49–88; Casula, Francesco Cesare. La Sardegna aragonese: 1. La Corona d’Aragona, 2. La Nazione Sarda. Sassari: Chiarella, 1990; Ferrer, Maria Teresa. “La guerra d’Arborea alla fine del XIV secolo, in Giudicato d’Arborea e Marchesato di Oristano: proiezioni mediterranee e aspetti di storia locale. 1° Convegno Internazionale di Studi (Oristano, 5–8 dicembre 1997), Giampaolo Mele, ed. Oristano: ISTAR, 2000: 2/1, 535–620; Cioppi, Alessandra. Le strategie dell’invincibilità. Corona d’Aragona e Regnum Sardiniae nella seconda metà del Trecento. Cagliari: AM&D Editrice, 2012: 47–128. Valdeavellano, Luis Garcìa. Curso de historia de las istituciones españolas. De los orígenes al final de la Edad Media. Madrid: Ediciones de la Revista de Occidente,

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As things went, Sardinia did not enjoy this prerogative4. Contributing to this was not only the contingent status the island was taking on, consisting of a condition of permanent conflict and therefore political and economic instability, but above all the fragmentary nature of the pre-Aragonese Sardinian political world onto which the new Regnum Sardiniae was superimposed. This institutional substratum consisted of the age-old state architecture of the three Giudicati that had disappeared, onto which the communal forms imported from the maritime republics of Pisa and Genova, and of the lordly possessions of the Doria, Gherardesca, and Malaspina families5, were grafted. So complex a local situation not only impeded the establishment of normal relations between the subjects and the Aragonese monarchy, but forced the latter into a rapid clash of “identities” between its own system and the “others” already present on the territory. An institutional process arose which transformed the island into the testing grounds for institutions and offices that over time were modified, suppressed or maintained – and in some cases even extended to the other kingdoms in the Iberian Confederation6. Upon his arrival in Sardinia, Alfonso IV of Aragon – buoyed by a confused political climate and a contradictory society of Sardinians, disunited and with no contractual weight, on the one side, and Iberians interested exclusively in initiatives to their own personal advantage on the other – instituted for the Regnum Sardiniae a totalitarian system, extraordinarily articulated and exclusive, which for no less than four centuries constituted the basic structure of and the key to interpreting the subsequent Spanish and Savoy institutions until 18477.

4 5

6

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1968: 227 and 412; Olla Repetto, Gabriella. Il primo “liber curiae” della Procurazione reale di Sardegna (1413–1425). Rome: Ministero dell’Interno, 1974. Olla Repetto, Gabriella. Il primo “liber curiae” …: 45. Petrucci, Sandro. Re in Sardegna, a Pisa cittadini. Ricerche sui “domini Sardiniee” pisani. Bologna: Cappelli, 1988; Tangheroni, Marco. “L’economia e la società della Sardegna (XI–XIII secolo)”,  Storia dei Sardi e della Sardegna. Il Medioevo: dai giudicati agli aragonesi, Massimo Guidetti, ed. Milan: Jaca Book, 1988: 157–191 and “La Sardegna prearagonese: una società senza feudalesimo?”, Structures féodales et féodalisme dans l’Occident Méditerranéen (X–XII siécles). Bilan et perspectives de recherches. Rome: École Française de Rome, 1980: 523–550. Solmi, Arrigo. Studi storici sulle istituzioni della Sardegna nel Medio Evo. Cagliari: Società Storica Sarda, 1917: 328; Lalinde Abadía, Jesús. Iniciación histórica al Derecho español. Barcelona: Ariel, 1970. Valdeavellano, Luis Garcìa. Curso de historia…: 419–426; Lalinde Abadía, Jesús. “L’influenza dell’ordinamento politico-giuridico catalano in Sardegna”, Alghero, la

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This being stated, anyone who approaches the study of this institutional system is awed by its dynamic nature and by the continuous juridical evolution it had, especially during the fourteenth century. For the Aragonese sovereigns, the island became the Crown’s institutional “workshop”, a laboratory of systems led by a criterion that may be defined as centralized, which is to say that of a kingdom oriented towards privileging monarchical power and placing it ahead of other social forces. Alfonso IV, and all the Catalan/Aragonese kings to follow, once the island was inserted into the sphere of Aragon’s power, gave it a system which, in the broad institutional landscape of the Iberian Confederation, was headed towards a form of monarchy on its way to absolutism: joined to the Crown by the figure of the Sovereign, and subjected to the Court’s superior system8. Sardinia, then, had a new arrangement of government, characterized by institutional reforms that while appearing unshowy in form were not at all in substance. The pre-Aragonese system was in appearance neither abolished nor overturned; appearance and terminology were left unaltered. But in terms of content, it was emptied of its essential features. The changes, made at the precise directive of quieta non movere, took place in an apparently natural way. In an initial moment, they were implemented to ease integration of local institutions with Catalan ones and to facilitate control over juridical situations strictly regarding the local population. Later, the modifications served to introduce, ex novo, a set of bodies and offices that were supposed to replace the pre-existing arrangement and regulate the relationships that existed between Sardinians and Iberians – relationships that were rigorously subordinated to laws issued ad hoc by the Crown9. To implement this change, the administrative structures used were those of the mother state of Catalonia and not those of Aragon or of the other kingdoms in the Union. Sardinia was thus inserted directly into the workings of Catalan power. Not only were the institutions existing in

8

9

Catalogna, il Mediterraneo, Antonello Mattone, Piero Sanna, eds. Sassari: Gallizzi, 1994: 273–279; Anatra, Bruno. “Dall’unificazione aragonese ai Savoia”, La Sardegna medioevale e moderna: Storia d’Italia, X, John Day, Bruno Anatra, Lucetta Scaraffia, eds. Turin: UTET, 1984: 189–663. Cioppi, Alessandra. Le strategie…: 105–135; Olla Repetto, Gabriella. “La nascita nella Sardegna aragonese dell’istituto del governatore generale e la sua successiva diffusione nei Regna della Corona”, Archivio Storico Sardo, XXXVI (1989): 105–127. Lalinde Abadia, Jesús. Iniciación histórica…: 175.

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Catalonia applied, but the same model was imposed on it, and the need was affirmed to constitute a stable hierarchy in which offices took on a well-defined and authoritative appearance10.

3. The legal system of the Regnum Sardiniae: a top-down structure between peculiarities and limits The institutional and administrative system of the Regnum Sardiniae may be diagrammed as a bureaucratic organization that was essentially topdown and tripartite: feudal, municipal, and royal. Each sector, although autonomous, intersected with the others in both functions and competences, and each of these structures had to collaborate towards a common end in order to sustain the Crown’s grandeur and strengthen royal power11. The first sector – the feudal administration – was created in conjunction with the territorial occupation of the Regnum and was born as a way to reward noblemen and Iberian figures who had lent their collaboration towards financing the enterprise of conquest. In short order, almost all of the conquered Sardinian land was subjected to royal control through the power of the feudal lords. Although the economic motive may appear to prevail over purely institutional reasons, this institution was in fact the first manifestation of the Catalan totalitarian project12. In fact, to attenuate the disadvantages that the feudal system could bring with it, the monarchs repudiated the form of the allod then flourishing in the kingdoms of the Crown, to privilege the form of the mos Italiae that limited baronial powers13.

10 Olla Repetto, Gabriella. Gli ufficiali regi di Sardegna durante il regno di Alfonso IV, Cagliari: Fossataro, 1969; Costa y Paretas, Maria Mercedes. “Sobre uns pressupostos per a l’administració de Sardenya (1338–1344)”, Homenaje a Jaime Vicens Vives. Barcelona: Universidad de Barcelona, 1965: I, 395–415. 11 Lalinde Abadia, Jesús. La Corona de Aragón en el Mediterraneo medieval (1229–1479). Zaragoza: CSIC, 1979; Cioppi, Alessandra. “L’ordinamento istituzionale del Regnum Sardiniae et Corsicae nei secoli XIV e XV”, Sardegna Catalana, Anna Maria Oliva, Olivetta Schena, eds. Barcelona: Institut d’Estudis Catalans, 2014: 105–135. 12 Lalinde Abadia, Jesús. La Corona de Aragón …: 112–123. 13 Lalinde Abadia, Jesús. Iniciación histórica…: 388.

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The second sphere of administrative organization was the municipal one. The municipi were patterned after the Catalan municipality introduced to replace the system of autonomous communes shaped in accordance with the Italian models inherited from Pisa and Genoa, which from the beginnings of the thirteenth century had exerted their supremacy over the island14. The type of municipality that was imported was what doctrine defines as rudimentario, as opposed to Aragon’s perfeito15. The note of distinction between the two forms was that in the perfeito the power to administer justice was exercised by the community of citizens, while in the rudimentario it was exercised by the King. Barcelona was the prototype for this municipality and in 1327, the civic administration of Castell de Càller, the capital of the new Sardinian/Catalan Kingdom, was patterned upon the rules of Barcelona’s legal system16. In this case as well, power was centralized in the hands of the monarch, who through the municipal structure put up a bulwark against the expansion of local civic autonomy17. Often, of the ancient forms of municipal government, only the Italian terminology remained. This was the case for the offices of capitano or podestà which, despite the continued use of the title, were totally and exclusively identified with the figure of the veguer, the most important 14 Tangheroni, Marco. “Nascita e affermazione di una città: Sassari dal XII al XIV secolo”, Gli Statuti sassaresi. Economia, società, istituzioni a Sassari nel Medioevo e nell’Età Moderna, Antonello Mattone, Marco Tangheroni, eds. Cagliari: Edes, 1986: 45–63; Lalinde Abadia, Jesús. Iniciación histórica…: 143–150. 15 Valdeavellano, Luis Garcìa. Curso de historia…: 537; Lalinde Abadía, Jesús. La Corona de Aragón…:143–50; Montagut, Tomàs. “El Libre Verd de Privilegis de Barcelona y el Dret General de Catalunya”, Liber amicorum Juan Miquel: estudios romanísticos con motivo de su emeritazgo. Barcelona: Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2006: 703–720; Navarro, Germán. “Ciudades y villas del reino de Aragón en el siglo XV. Proyección institucional e ideología burguesa”, Anales de la Universidad de Alicante. Historia Medieval, 16 (2009–2010): 195–221. 16 Di Tucci, Raffaele. Il Libro Verde della città di Cagliari. Cagliari: Società Editoriale Italiana, 1925: 145–146; Petrucci, Sandro. Cagliari nel Trecento. Politica, istituzioni, economia e società. Dalla conquista aragonese alla guerra tra Arborea ed Aragona (1323–1365). PhD Dissertation, Università degli Studi di Sassari, a.a. 2005–2006. 17 Sabaté Curull, Flocel. “Municipio y monarquía en la Cataluña bajomedieval”, Municipio y centralizacíon monarquíca a finales de la edad media, Anales de la Universidad de Alicante. Historia Medieval, Juan A. Barrio Barrio, ed., 13 (2000–2002): 255–282; Martí Sentañes, Esther. “El poder urbano en clave identitaria. Notas sobre las oligarquías catalano-aragonesas a través del Llibre Verd de Cagliari”, Sardegna e Catalogna officinae d’identità: Riflessioni storiografiche e prospettive di ricerca. Studi in memoria di Roberto Coroneo, Alessandra Cioppi, ed. Cagliari: CNR-ISEM, 2013: 387–430.

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official in town administration, since he was the chief of the entire municipality and a true “king’s eye” over the territory18. The third and most important cornerstone of the system was the royal administration, which represented the sovereign’s direct government and was closely linked to municipal administration. It represented the longa manus of the king over the entire territory, because it consisted of his direct collaborators, the officials, chosen only among Iberian subjects of proven loyalty, bound to him by a private-type relationship. The officials exercised all the functions of government in the king’s name, and presided over the officia in capite, complex operative units patterned after similar ones operating in Catalonia Catalogna19. 3.1 Central figures of the Sardinian/Catalan institutional system Although a great many offices of the royal administration of the Regnum Sardiniae, for their particular nature and complexity, merit our mention, two are particularly deserving, because the entire Sardinian/Catalan institutional system revolves around them: the governador general and the batlle general, both true representatives of the monarch. The office of governador general was instituted by the Infante Alfonso in 1324, immediately after the island’s conquest, and assigned to the most trusted councillors almost always belonging to the most illustrious families bound to the monarchy20. The sovereign’s veritable alter ego, the governor was endowed with the highest government, judicial, and military functions over the island’s entire territory. This institution ushered in and enshrined for the first time in the Kingdom of Sardinia the Aragonese monarchs’ 18 Sabaté Curull, Flocel. “Corona de Aragón”, Historia de España. La época medieval: administración y gobierno. Madrid: Editorial Istmo, (2003): 325–458; “El veguer a Catalunya. Anàlisi del funcionament de la jurisdició reial al segle XIV”, Butlletí de la Societat catalana d’estudis historic, 6 (1995): 147–159; “Discurs i estratègies del poder reial a Catalunya al segle XIV”, Anuario de Estudios Medievales, 25 (1995): 617–646; Urban, M. Bonaria. “L’istituto del veguer e l’amministrazione della città di Cagliari. Alcune note preliminari”, El món urbà a la Corona d’Aragó del 1137 als Decrets de Nova Planta. XVII Congress de Historia de la Corona de Aragón (Barcelona. Lleida, 7–12 setembre 2000). Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, 2003: III, 1023–1044. 19 Olla Repetto, Gabriella. Gli ufficiali regi…: 7. 20 Arribas Palau, Antonio. La conquista de Cerdeña…: 333; Olla Repetto, Gabriella. Gli ufficiali regi…: 13–16.

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orientation towards absolutism, which was soon definitively extended to all the other kingdoms in the Iberian Confederation21 The batlle general was likewise an official of reference for the king, this time from the administrative standpoint22. A man of proven loyalty, he was free to administratively run the entire royal patrimony of the Regnum Sardiniae; placed in his hands was the function of collecting all debts owed to the sovereign. However, his function in the Kingdom of Sardinia was also marked by the management of the extraordinary financing that the Court obtained during those years for the defence of the Kingdom devastated by a grave political and economic crisis23.

4. The institutional system of the Giudicato of Arborea: characteristics and notes of distinction To fully grasp the island’s political and constitutional world that the Regnum Sardiniae belonged to in the fourteenth century, one cannot ignore the presence of the Giudicato of Arborea that Aragon was forced to deal with. Even without an analysis focusing on each individual office or institutional responsibility, at first glance it is clear that the giudicato system appears neither outlined on the basis of nor patterned after the Catalan/ Aragonese system. However, like the Iberian one, it is dynamic, and rich in compound, contradictory, and evolving elements. In Arborea’s structure, one may discern an essentially bipartite bureaucratic system: central and peripheral administration. 21

Lalinde Abadia, Jesùs. “Virreyes y lugartenientes medievales en la Corona de Aragón”, Cuadernos de historia de España, 34 (1960): 97–172; Olla Repetto, Gabriella. “La nascita…”: 105–127. 22 Valdeavellano, Luis Garcìa. Curso de historia…: 516–517, 595; Piles Ros, Leopoldo. Estudio documental sobre el bayle general de Valencia, su autoridad y jurisdicción. Valencia: Instituto Valenciano de Estudios Históricos, 1970; Montagut, Tomàs. “El batlle general de Catalunya”, Hacienda Publica Española, 87 (1984): 73–84. 23 Cioppi, Alessandra. “I registri di Jordi de Planella, batlle general di Sardegna. Note sull’amministrazione di un ufficiale regio alla fine del XIV secolo”, La corona catalanoaragonesa i el seu entorn mediterrani a la baixa edat mitjana, M. Teresa Ferrer, Josefina Mutgé, Manuel Sánchez, eds. Barcelona: CSIC, 2005: 23–63.

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The central administration hinged on the giudice, the heridtary monarch (also by the female line)24, in whom all the state powers, from the legislative to the judicial, from the administrative to the military, converged, and was based on officials appointed by the giudice and selected from among members of the aristocracy. The aristocracy was very restricted in its composition because it consisted of the maiorales who included the donnikellos, the giudice’s close relatives, the donnos who were more distant relatives, and the liurus maiorales: noblement, powerful layfolk, and clerics25. Completing the central administration was the Corona de Logu, the Giudicato’s Parliament, characterized by an assembly of lieros (freemen) that assisted the giudice in the more important acts26. Beneath the aristocracy, the lieros were a highly numerous and varied social class because they included all the rest of the social fabric, from landholders of average wealth to families without their own assets and the serf class27. The peripheral administration, on the other hand, was organized on a territorial basis and was based upon two orders of districts – the curatorìe and the villas28. The curatorìa or contrada, the latter term acquired from Italian municipal organization, referred to a not particularly large area of the territory that grouped together a set of villas. It was governed by a curatore de curatorìa, appointed by the giudice and chosen from among the lieros in his trust, with full administrative and above all judicial functions that he performed by presiding over a popularly attended tribunal called Corona de curatorìa29. The villa corresponded to a rural aggregation in which the community – formed by the inhabitants, freemen, and serfs residing in its territory – had legal personality. It was placed under the maiore de scolca, appointed most likely by the curatore de curatorìa from among the persons belonging 24 Oliva, Anna Maria. “La successione dinastica femminile nei giudicati sardi”, Miscellanea di studi medioevali sardo-catalani. Cagliari: CNR-IRII, 1981: 11–35. 25 Livi, Carlo. Studi sulla società e l’economia della Sardegna giudicale. Sassari: Carlo Delfino Editore, 2017: 68–71, 81–88; Soddu, Alessandro. “Forme di decentramento del potere nell’Arborea trecentesca: donnikellos, apanages e majoria de pane”, Bollettino di Studi Sardi, 1 (2008): 39–71. 26 Solmi, Arrigo. Studi storici…: 61–68; Artizzu, Francesco. L’opera di S. Maria di Pisa e la Sardegna. Padua: CEDAM, 1974. 27 Livi, Carlo. Studi sulla società…: 71–73, 88–101. 28 Casula, Francesco Cesare. “Castelli e fortezze”, Atlante della Sardegna, Roberto, Pracchi, Angela, Terrosu Asole, eds. Rome: Edizioni Kappa, 1980: II, 109 113; Livi, Carlo. Villaggi e popolazione della Sardegna nei secoli XI–XX. Sassari: Carlo Delfino Editore, 2004. 29 Di Tucci, Raffaele. “L’organismo giudiziario sardo. La Corona”, Archivio Storico Sardo, 12 (1916–17): 87–148.

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to the lieros class30. His functions were administrative and judicial, since in the exercise of his office he was always accompanied by a group of guards, called the scolca. In cases of a number of villas breaking up or merging together – phenomena that were quite frequent although gradual –, the maiore de scolca was accompanied, in a subordinate position, by the maiores de villa, as the various settlements long maintained their own individual personalities and problems31. The highly top-down Giudicato system, then, was founded upon an original centralization of the powers in the head of state, and the collaboration of the highest social class bound closely to his family. The underlying totalitarian juridical principle may thus be likened to that of the Aragonese monarchy. However, two important elements softened its rigour: on the one hand the absorption of the autonomous institutions of the Italian municipalities, and on the other the presence of forms of direct and indirect democracy, represented by the peripheral administration and by the creation of local parliaments, the Corone de curatorìa. The presence of boni homines and of iurados (lieros) in these assemblies distributed throughout the Giudicato’s territory shows a strong propensity for group work, and this collegiality ensured self-management and the people’s active participation in the public life of the community they belonged to32.

5. Institutional conflict The institutional picture just drawn is far from encompassing all the problems related to a conflict between the Sardinian-Aragonese system of the Regnum Sardiniae and that of the Giudicato of Arborea. However, at first glance it seems clear that while the former, given the times, was more structured, the latter at the same time appeared, in 30 Livi, Carlo. Studi sulla società…: 102–103, 108–118. 31 Soddu, Alessandro. Crasta, Paola. Strinna, Giovanni. “Un’inedita carta sardo-greca del XII secolo dell’Archivio capitolare di Pisa”, Bollettino di Studi Sardi, 3 (2010): 5–42; Tangheroni, Marco. “Due documenti sulla Sardegna non aragonese del ‘300”, Medioevo. Saggi e Rassegne, 2 (1976): 27–64. 32 Giardina, Camillo. “boni homines”. Novissimo Digesto Italiano. Turin: UTET, 1968: II, 501; Madau Diaz, Gaetano. Il codice degli statuti del libero comune di Sassari, Cagliari: Fossataro, 1969: II, 5, 6, 7, 13, 16, 17, 19, III, 4, 8, 15, 18, 26, 32.

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certain aspects, decidedly more emancipated. One of these aspects is the public patrimony regime in which, unlike what took place in the Crown of Aragon, a precise distinction was drawn between the state’s and the giudice’s assets33. The reason for this was that that this juridical system, overwhelmed in Europe by barbarian invasions and by the development of feudalism, persisted in Sardinia where, due to the natural isolation that had kept the island from establishing relations with those societies and those forms of government, it had never disappeared. Moreover, to these not only formal considerations, the fact must be added that the Giudicato system, theoretically less advanced than the Aragonese, in actuality allowed the people to take concrete part in running the public affairs. In the final analysis, it was the only institutional system in Sardinia capable, in the fourteenth century, of guaranteeing the local population the dignity of freemen – the lieros indicated in Arborea’s legislative code known as Carta de Logu34 – and not the subordinate condition reserved for them in the territories subject to Aragon. Therefore, although the Sardinian-Arborea system appeared to be in continuous change like the Sardinian-Catalan one, it was in fact doing so in the opposite direction. While the latter was oriented towards a monarchy headed in the direction of absolutism, the former was evolving from autocratic and oligarchic positions towards democratic ones, in concord with the new appearance Sardinian society had taken on, and in harmony with the new principles of liberty that had been affirmed with the local autonomies.

6. Conclusions To deal systematically with the study of the institutional systems in force in Sardinia in the fourteenth century, it is indispensable to start with a review of the literature and of the published documentation, in order to bridge some gaps in the historiography. Extensive research must then be 33

Ferrer, Maria Teresa. “El patrimoni reial i la recuperació dels senyorius jurisdiccionals en els estats catalano-aragonesos a la fi del segle XIV”, Anuario de Estudios Medievales, 7 (1970–71): 351–491; Sánchez, Manuel. “La fiscalidad real en Catalunya (siglo XIV)”, Anuario de Estudios Medievales, 22 (1992): 341–376 and 1995. 34 Casula, Francesco Cesare. La “Carta de Logu” del regno di Arborea. Cagliari: CNR-IRII, 1994: 103–105, 127–129.

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undertaken at the main archives of the kingdoms of the Crown of Aragon, in both the Iberian and Italian settings. That said, this brief analysis still allows the initially critical areas to be highlighted, and some general and basic considerations to be formulated. During the fourteenth century, the legal system of the Giudicato of Arborea as early as the government of giudice Marianus IV, but more so with Iudicissa Eleonor, showed growing evidence of an advanced process of a crumbling of the structures typical of the archaic period, which had created insurmountable barriers between the social classes and transformed civil liberties and participation in public life into class privileges. In light of this, the contradiction between the measured political dimension of the state of Arborea and its considerable institutional and legislative stature is disproved. It is no accident that after the Giudicato of Arborea met its end in 1409, its juridical corpus survived, and beginning in 1421 Carta de Logu was extended to all of Sardinia on the strength of its perfect adherence to the island’s social situation, its rich content of enduring legal knowledge, and its unexpected modernity for the time. To the contrary, the Regnum Sardiniae, despite the victory over the Giudicato of Arborea and flexibility in seeking reforms and innovative solutions adapted to the needs of the moment, showed clear signs of weakness. In fact, the feudal system, although it devolved onto the feudal lords the task of defending the Kingdom and transformed this class into a new instrument of power, in actuality brought opposite consequences, because the fragmentation of the territory and the iniquities wrought by the feudal lords dismembered and weakened the island. Likewise, the municipal and royal administrations, instead of strengthening the Crown’s power and authority, exhausted its capacity for control given their continuously overlapping power and their consequently conflicting spheres of responsibility. In the final analysis, due to conflicts of interest, the Regnum Sardiniae was the stage on which the various players – feudal lords, city elites, royal officials – not only did not support royal power by acting in mutual harmony but were paradoxically transformed from being the system’s points of strengths into becoming the elements of the kingdom’s disintegration.

Esther Martí Sentañes CNR – Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea

Oligarchies, urban government and royal cities in late medieval Sardinia: elements for the construction of an identity

1. Introduction1 Since the arrival of the troops of the Crown of Aragon in Sardinia in 1323 and thanks to the definitive settlement of numerous Aragonese components, whether military, merchants, craftsmen in the Sardinian land, an increasingly notable group of Iberian origin is created, who will have a prominent role in the government of the Kingdom2. The role acquired by the cities, in particular the royal ones, during the conquest and organization of the territory conquered by Pisans, Genoese and the Giudicato of Arborea is of the utmost importance. In all this process the strongold of Cagliari, considered as «I dels excellents e nobles castells del mon e sia clau de tota la isla de Sardenya» will play a decisive role3. 1

2

3

This article has been made thanks to the project E pluribus unum. Il profilo identitario sardo dal Medioevo alla Contemporaneità (CRP-78440). Regione Autonoma della Sardegna; Dr. Luciano Gallinari (PI). See, among others Casula, Francesco C. Profilo storico della Sardegna catalanoara­gonese, Cagliari, Della Torre, 1982. I catalani in Sardegna, Jordi Carbonell, Francesco Manconi, coords. Cinisello Balsamo: Consiglio Regionale della Sardegna, 1984. Sardegna catalana, Anna M. Oliva, Olivetta Schena, coords. Barcelona: Institut d’Estudis catalans, 2014. Response of the infant Alfonso to the chapters of the memorandum presented by Gui­llem Sa-Badia (1327). Conde, Rafael. Castell de Càller. Cagliari catalano-aragonese. Cagliari: Ed. della Torre, 1984: Doc. VI, 225. See also Casula, Francesco C. Profilo storico della Sardegna. Jordi Carbonell, Francesco Manconi, coords. I catalani in Sardegna. Petrucci, Sandro. Cagliari nel Trecento. Politica, istituzioni, economia e società. Dalla conquista aragonese alla guerra tra Arborea ed Aragona (1323–1365). PhD Dissertation (Tesi di Dottorato in ‘Antropologia, Storia medievale,

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Together with the growth, not without difficulties, of the main cities of the Crown, with losses and acquisitions, according to the moment4, similarly to the Principality of Catalonia, a process of formation of Sardinian5 urban oligarchies is observed5. And parallel to this process it is very interesting to ask what identity or identities presented the components of the government of the crown cities throughout the Late Middle Ages, analysing different elements as identity markers6. The late medieval citizen oligarchies that rule the government of the cities of the Crown, evolved throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth century, being possible to speak of a discourse on the identity and ideology of these elites especially after 1420, once the conflict ended with the house of Arborea. Thus, the long period of peace allowed economic growth, a new social organization and an administrative reorganization and all this had repercussions on the development of the different cities, creating a more homogeneous and compact oligarchy, which adapted and expanded among a legal corpus of privileges and consuetudes, clinging to a series of citizen institutions that delimited and favoured their power, at the same time7.

4 5

6

7

Filologia e Letterature del Mediterraneo Occidentale in relazione alla Sardegna’ [XX ciclo]). Università degli Studi di Sassari a.a. 2005–2006, 2010: 645–647. Sorgia, Giancarlo. “Le città regie”, I catalani in Sardegna…: 51–58. See for the Catalan case Fernández Trabal, Josep. “De «prohoms» a ciudadanos honrados. Aproximación al estudio de las elites urbanas de la sociedad catalana bajomedieval (S. XIV–XV)”, Revista d’Història Medieval, 10 (1999): 331–372; Sabaté, Flocel, “Ejes vertebradores de la oligarquía urbana en Cataluña”, Revista d’Història Medieval, 9 (1998): 127–149. Bertrán, Prim. “Oligarquías y familias en Cataluña”, La sociedad en Aragón y Cataluña en el reinado de Jaime I (1213–1276), Esteban Sarasa, coord. Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico, 2009: 53–80. Sabaté, Flocel. “El naixement medieval d’una identitat urbana i burguesa”, L’Edat Mitjana: Món real i espai imaginat. Barcelona: Afers, 2012: 111–125; Sabaté, Flocel. “‛Amar la nostra nació’”, Sardegna e Catalogna officinae di identità. Riflessioni storiografiche e prospettive di ricerca. Studi in memoria di Roberto Coroneo. Atti del seminario di studi (Cagliari, 15 aprile 2011), Alessandra Cioppi, coord. Cagliari: ISEM-CNR, 2013:15–37; Sabaté, Flocel. “Ciudad e identidad en la Cataluña bajomedieval”, Ante su identidad: la ciudad hispánica en la Baja Edad Media, José Antonio Jara, coord. Cuenca: Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 2013: 177–214. Jara, José Antonio. “Percepción de «sí», percepción del «otro»: la construcción de identidades políticas urbanas en Castilla (el Concejo de Cuenca en el siglo XV)”, Anuario de Estudios Medievales, 40/1 (2010): 75,79–80. Oliva, Anna M. Schena, Olivetta. “Potere regio ed autonomie cittadine nei parlamenti sardi del XV secolo”, Autonomía Municipal en el mundo mediterráneo.

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Throughout this process, the construction of the identity of this small and exclusive group of citizens will play a decisive role, where the elaboration of an ideological discourse that would equate them with their Aragon’s counterparts was the key to legitimizing and justifying the power they exercised in the same cities and in their territory8.

2. Citizen oligarchies in Sardinia and elements that build their identity (14th – 15th century) Talking about the construction of an identity of the elites in the cities of the Crown in Sardinia, is to speak of the elaboration of a complex discourse in which a multitude of components are mixed, and in which it is necessary to differentiate between all the oligarchies that shape the city and that one more specific that composes the municipal government, object of our interest9. If we start from the ideological discourse used as an identity weapon of the elites that made up the urban government, this can be aimed to the cohesion of the university, understood as a global entity. Sometimes, this cohesion is achieved through an opposition “Me and the other”, that is, through the enemy in common, which can manifest itself in multiple facets: against another city of the Crown, against exponents of feudal power – usually by problems of jurisdiction in the same city–, versus the royal administration, and even against the same sovereign or his representatives

8

9

Historia y perspectivas, Remedios Ferrero, coord. Valencia: Fundación Professor Manuel Broseta, 2002: 152. Barrio, Juan A. “‛Per servey de la Corona d´Aragó’. Identidad urbana y discurso político en la frontera meridional del reino de Valencia: Orihuela en la Corona de Aragón, ss. XIII-XV”, Hispania. Revista Española de Historia, 18 (2011): 438–439. The urban elites encompass a great complexity in their interior, to them belong the high positions of the Crown, the families that shape the urban government, the feudal aristocracy, who live or spend much of their time in the city, without forgetting the representatives, usually of the same families, who occupy a privileged place in ecclesiastical life. Tocco, Francesco P. “Fisionomia dei ceti dirigenti centrali e locali della Sicila Quattrocentesca”, Élites urbane e organizzazione sociale in area mediterranea fra tardo medioevo e prima età moderna. Atti del seminario di studi. Cagliari 1–2 novembre 2011, M. Giuseppina Meloni, coord. Cagliari: ISEM-CNR, 2013: 21–22.

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(see, for example, the process of opposition of the entire city, not only of the Cagliari council, to the Viceroy in the parliament of 1481–85)10. But the element that is repeated and that stands out is, without a doubt, the need of the municipal oligarchies to manifest – almost to show off – their Iberian origin, together with their proud belonging to the Crown of Aragon. Thus, it is worth to highlight this very strong Aragonese feeling, especially in the cities whose nature was fully identified with the Crown, such as Cagliari and L’Alguer, because of the repopulations suffered, being mostly occupied by new inhabitants from Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands. The oligarchies of these cities with a stronger Catalan tradition differed from those of the other cities that were conquered in much later times, such as Castelsardo (1448) or Oristano (1479), or from others where, because of their particular history, the Iberian component was notably smaller and its oligarchies had to mediate between the groups in favour of the Crown of Aragon and the opposites, as happened for example in Sassari11. In the latter case, Tangheroni reflected on the philo-Aragonese tendency of the Sassari’s elites even before the military occupation of Sardinia by the Crown of Aragon12. The city, liberated from the control of Genoa, once informed of the intentions of Jaime II to attack the island, voluntarily submitted to the Crown. This decision was the result of strong internal struggles between urban factions, where political nature and personal opportunity weighed more than social origin. Hence the idea of associating as soon as possible with the most likely winner of an inevitable struggle for control of the island, with all the personal and family advantages that derive from this decision13. In this way, the Sassari’s government moved between the fear of which its identity could

10

Era, Antonio. Il Parlamento sardo del 1481–1485. Milano: A. Giuffrè Editore, 1955: 47–130. 11 Sorgia, Giancarlo. “Le città regie”: 51–58. Brigaglia, Manlio. “Alghero: la Catalogna come madre e come mito”, I catalani in Sardegna:171–182. 12 Tangheroni, Marco. “Nascita ed affermazione di una città: Sassari dal XII al XIV secolo”, Gli statuti sassaresi: economia, società, istituzioni a Sassari nel medioevo e nell’età moderna. Atti del Convegno di studi. Sassari, 12–14 maggio 1983. Cagliari: Edes, 1986: 57–58. 13 Mattone, Antonello. “Gli Statuti sassaresi nel periodo aragonese e spagnolo”, Gli Statuti sassaresi…: 418–419.

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be erased by the policy of repopulation from Aragon and the fear to be absorbed by the arborense dominion14. Another recurring aspect that occupies an important place in the construction of the identity of these oligarchies was the fear of the foreigner, seen this as the enemy, animosity that materialized especially on the Sardinian population. In fact, in the reconstruction of the historical memory that allows the creation of the own identity, the conception of the “I” as opposed to the “other” is one of the most relevant identity items, being the otherness of the foreigner in this case considered the opposite to the citizenship15. The fear of the Sardinians by those who managed the urban government, then, became especially evident until the end of the war hostilities against the Giudicato of Arborea, and was reflected in different documentary references (see, for example, the Llibre Vert of Cagliari, where it is evident that the castle guards must be 2 bons homes catalans o argonesos, or the use of the Trompete de fora sarts)16. At first, the situation generated by the war of conquest did not allow to attribute confidence to the Sardinian population, who not having the citizenship of the Crown of Aragon was excluded from public office, nor was allowed to sleep inside the castle of Cagliari. After the pacification, but, these prohibitions were transformed into a form of power control, continuing to exclude those who did not have this nationality. The same situation was largely reproduced in L’Alguer, where the relations between the citizen government and the indigenous population were marked by a

14 Anatra, Bruno. “I ceti dirigenti sassaresi nell’età aragonese e spagnola”, Gli statuti sassaresi: 365, 367–368; Castellaccio, Angelo. Aspetti di storia italo-catalana. Sassari: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Editrice Diesse, 1983: 76–91; Galoppini, Laura. Potere e ricchezza nella Sassari aragonese. Pisa: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, ETS editrice, 1989: 17–41; Roggio, M. Immacolata. “Spazi urbani e società nella Sassari del XIV secolo”, Identità cittadine ed élites politiche e economiche in Sardegna tra XIII e XV secolo, Giuseppe Meloni, Pinuccia Simbula, Alessandro Soddu, coords., Sassari: Edes, 2010: 129–137. 15 Navarro, Germán. “Ciudades y villas del reino de Aragón en el siglo XV. Proyección institucional e ideología burguesa”, Anales de la Universidad de Alicante. Historia Medieval, 16 (2009–2010): 210. 16 Thus, at nightfall, before closing the doors of the castle, a trumpet was played to announce to anyone who was not a citizen of the Crown that they had to leave, a custom that will last officially until its suppression by Charles V in 1515. Di Tucci, Raffaele. Il libro verde …:15, 292.

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notable weight of differentiation between the population of Iberian and Sardinian origin17. On the other hand, the cohesion of a community, in the words of Mann, is based on the control of power from a political, military, economic and ideological point of view18. In fact, the elites of the municipal government of the main Sardinian cities forged their strategy of continuity in the control of all these fields, filling them with identity nuances. Thus, being a Royal city was a guarantee of protection against adversity and the attacks of enemies, even more so in a territory in the process of conquest, inevitably giving an identity connotation of belonging to a much larger and more powerful reality to its inhabitants and especially their urban government, which affected the own perception of these oligarchies. For the monarchy, on the other hand, its cities will be a bulwark for territorial control, in addition to a point of essential support in its attempt to avoid an imbalance in favour of the feudal nobility, who had already acquired a role of first order thanks to the concessions made by the Crown itself in the process of conquest and repopulation of the Sardinian territory19. The common sense of belonging to the Crown by the oligarchies components of urban government was, then, an essential identity element-symbol. In this sense, it will be crucial for them to maintain certain independence through royal privileges as protection to avoid being given or sold. In this sense, the elites of the Sardinian royal cities will manifest their pride of belonging to the Crown and will present it to the sovereign, or his representatives, on different occasions through their speeches in the parliaments or in the embassies, reminding him that by privileges granted by their ancestors the city could not be alienated20. Thus, in the Parliament of 1421 Iglesias and Bosa explicitly asked the sovereign for the guarantee

17 Tavera, Baingio. Piras, Gianfranco. I Libri dei privilegi della città di Alghero. Libre Gran. Cagliari: AM&D Edizioni, 1999: 39–41, 427–428. Castellaccio, Angelo. “L’amministrazione della giustizia a Sassari nel periodo aragonese”, Gli statuti sassaresi: economia, società, istituzioni a Sassari nel medioevo e nell’età moderna. Atti del Convegno di studi. Sassari, 12–14 maggio 1983. Cagliari: Edes, 1986: 317, 328–329. 18 Mann, Michael. Las fuentes del poder social. Una historia del poder desde los comienzos hasta 1760 d.C. Madrid: Alianza Ed., 1991: I, 5, 27–28, 43–56. Barrio, Juan A. “‛Per servey de la Corona”… :439. 19 Tangheroni, Marco. “Il feudalesimo”, I catalani in Sardegna…: 41–44. 20 Tavera, Baingio. Piras, Gianfranco. I Libri dei privilegi…: 32–34.

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of not being feudalized21. Even so, above the interests of the oligarchies, the political and economic needs of the sovereign predominated, and Alfonso the Magnanimous, ended up giving Churches in fief in 1436, to be rescued later. In the same way, Bosa was feudalized after its conquest, passed into the hands of Mariano IV, to return to be city of the Crown in 1420, and ended up being feudalized in 1468 to the Vilamarí, notwithstanding the protests of the citizen government22. The relations of the urban government with the monarchy were, on the other hand, a contradictory element in the management of the political power of the city. In this way, the urban oligarchies, even understanding the necessity and importance of the real factor in terms of protection and political, economic and social projection and, in spite of obtaining privileges and favours that played on behalf of this ruling class where the mercantile element occupied a remarkable space, the opposition to the sovereign will become more evident in certain aspects in which these elites saw their ability to manoeuvre curtailed. This fact will materialize especially throughout the fifteenth century, following this oligarchy a process similar to that carried out by the Catalan elites, although with a significant delay in the Sardinian case – although already perfectly perceptible in the requests made by the city of Cagliari in the Parliament of 1481–1485 –23. In the same way, these oligarchies used, in a similar way than other parts of the Crown, the relationship with the monarchy as a tool of legitimation. Hence the importance of their own statute, privileges, freedoms and graces granted by sovereigns, that the cities will make the monarch swear every time he comes to the throne, and for whose defence they will present continuous complaints in parliamentary sessions or through ambassadors. These concessions will be conserved, like the Iberian cities, in manuscript codices, which collected the normative corpus acquired in time. This memoir, together with the jurisdictional power that derived from these documents, are two important factors that facilitate the development of a common identity, as they affect the feeling of belonging to a

21 Boscolo, Alberto. I Parlamenti di Alfonso il Magnanimo. Acta Curiarum Regni Sardiniae. Cagliari: Consiglio Regionale della Sardegna, 1991: 113–130. 22 Sorgia, Giancarlo. “Le città regie”…: 51–56. 23 Sabaté, Flocel. “Municipio y monarquía en la Cataluña Bajomedieval”, Anales de la Universidad de Alicante. Historia Medieval, 13 (2000–2002): 38–46. Era, Antonio. Il Parlamento sardo: 178–210.

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privileged space that is diverse from the others24. Thus, we can talk about the Llibre vert of Cagliari, the Llibres de privilegis of L’Alguer, the Llibre de regiment of Oristano or the Llibre dels Capítols of Bosa. It is necessary to add the numerous privileges based on the special right that the city of Barcelona had, that was granted in 1327 to Cagliari, in 1331 to Sassari and successively to the other cities of the real domain25. The Crown of Aragon respected the customs of the conquered territories – Statutes, Constitutions, Codifications – of validity in each own city, at the same time that it imposed the Catalan right in certain areas, being operative on the Iberian community present on the island26. Therefore, it is to be assumed that the oligarchy of the main cities of the royal district, and in particular that where the Aragonese presence in the council was more abundant – or practically total – as in Cagliari and L’Alguer, felt identified with the legislation and the administration of clear Catalan slant. In fact, these documentary types united, when they exist, to the acts of the councils, the municipal ordinances, the memorials, to the epistolary series, are a very valid source to analyse the construction and the evolution of the political message of the elites in power27. It should be considered that these documentary types were used by the new class of notaries and jurists grown up among the ranks of the urban bourgeoisie, elaborating a legal language and a political discourse in favour of the dominant oligarchy28. These jurists collected and perpetuated a common 24 Del Val Valdivieso, Isabel. “La identidad urbana al final de la Edad Media”, Anales de Historia Medieval de la Europa Atlántica, 1 (2006): 5–9. 25 Olla Repetto, Gabriella. “L’amministrazione regia”, I catalani in Sardegna: 47–50. Petrucci, Sandro. Cagliari nel Trecento: 571–577. Oliva, Anna M. Schena, Olivetta. “Potere regio ed autonomie cittadine”: 139–142. Martí, Esther. “El poder urbano en clave identitaria. Notas sobre las oligarquías catalano-aragonesas a través del Llibre Verd de Cagliari”, Sardegna e Catalogna officinae di identità. Riflessioni storiografiche e prospettive di ricerca. Studi in memoria di Roberto Coroneo. Atti del seminario di studi (Cagliari, 15 aprile 2011), Alessandra Cioppi, coord., Cagliari: ISEMCNR, 2013: 387–431. Schena, Olivetta. “Interessi cittadini, finanze regie e istituzioni parlamentari nella Sardegna del tardo Medioevo”, Saitabi. Revista de la Facultat de Geografia i Història, 64–65 (2014–2015): 82–83. 26 Castellaccio, Angelo. “L’amministrazione della giustizia”…: 307. 27 See, for example, the royal letters of the municipal archives of the Sardinian capital. Lettere regie alla città di Cagliari. Le carte reali dell’Archivio comunale di Cagliari. I (1358–1415), Anna M. Oliva, Olivetta Schena, coords. Roma: Istituto italiano per il Medioevo, 2012. 28 Bertrán, Prim. “Oligarquías y familias en Cataluña…: 79.

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historical memory where the central axis was belonging to the Crown, and where the importance of families in power was clear in the process of conquest and pacification of the kingdom of Sardinia alongside the military and ecclesiastical forces29. See in this regard two cases studied by Oliva, March Jover and Andrea Sunyer in two different moments of the 15th century, when these elites have already developed their social structure and have acquired a high level of awareness of belonging to a closed and privileged group that managed the government, the economy and the politics of the city. Thus, March Jover, notary of Catalan origin but settled in Cagliari, enjoyed a great esteem on the part of the Royal House. He exerted in numerous occasions like ambassador of the Sardinian capital in the face of the sovereign and in the Catalan Corts. In particular, in the memory presented by him in the Parliament of Barcelona of 1411 – at a delicate moment for the history of the Crown – makes a masterful use of historical memory, touching the main keys that make the identity of urban, ecclesiastical and feudal elites present in the parliament and showing how Cagliari was still in the hands of the descendants who conquered it. That is why he asked the courts for help to end the fatua e dampnada rebellio sardesque, evidencing the difference between the subjects of the Crown and the Sardinians, manifesting an ideological split and a conflict of identities between the two peoples that had lasted almost a century30. On the other hand, the memoir presented by the trustee of Cagliari, Andrea Sunyer, to the sovereign in the Parliament of 1481–1485, the Catalan root of the ruling class is continually evoked with the purpose that rights to the capital will not be taken away (note the delicate moment through which Cagliari was passing before the intrusions of the viceroy in the application of the redreç policy of Fernando the Catholic). Thus, in his speech the sacrifices made by this elite in favour of the Crown appeared and appealed to an ancestral heritage. In this speech, the image of the common enemy also appeared, the nació sarda. But Sunyer, still confirming the fidelity to the Crown by the oligarchy that he represents, claimed this

29 Barrio, Juan A. “‛Per servey de la Corona”…: 441–442. 30 Oliva, Anna M. “March Jover uomo del re e uomo dei consiglieri di Cagliari, in Sardegna e Mediterraneo tra Medioevo ed età Moderna. Studi in onore di Francesco Cesare Casula. Genova: Brigati, 2009: 313–316.

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time a greater autonomy with respect to the royal administration that had become almost oppressive31. On the other hand, through the cited sources, it breathes a list of surnames with a clear Iberian influence that will be repeated in the municipal documentation for centuries, a symbol of the importance of certain families that will perpetuate themselves in power, acquiring an important role in the forge of the identity of the oligarchic group32. See in the case of Cagliari surnames such as Roig, Sunyer, Salzet, Aymerich, Amat, Fortesa33, some with more than obvious family connections with the Iberian homeland34. In the same way, the expressions with which the sovereign addressed the council of its cities – and vice versa – are interesting, authentic markers of identity, because beyond formality, they hide interesting considerations about the value of the city for the Crown, as well as the relationship of the council with the Royal House and its representatives35. Thus, among the  most used locutions we find fidelity36, tranquillity of the kingdom or  the city, bon regiment and profit for the Kingdom37, utility of cosa publica, bon stament e conservatio of the city38. All these expressions, which have to be related to the idea of bon gobern of Eiximenis, became part of the very own perception of the elite that governed the cities39. In the 31 Oliva, Anna M. “‛Rahó es que la Magestat vostra sapia’. La Memoria del sindaco di Cagliari Andrea Sunyer al sovrano”, Bullettino dell’Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo (2003): 335–385. Oliva, Anna M. “Cagliari catalana nel Quattrocentro. Società, memoria e identità”, Élites urbane e organizzazione sociale: 126–128. Barrio, Juan A. “‛Per servey de la Corona…: 452. 32 Barrio, Juan A. “‛Per servey de la Corona”…: 445. 33 Meloni, M. Giuseppina. “La famiglia Fortesa nella Cagliari del Quattrocento. Prime ricerche”, La Corona catalanoaragonesa, l’Islam i el món mediterrani. Estudis d’història medieval en homenatge a la doctora Maria Teresa Ferrer i Mallol, Josefina Mutgé, Roser Salicrú, Carles Vela, eds., Barcelona: CSIC, 2013: 461–469. 34 Floris, Francesco. Feudi e Feudatari in Sardegna. Cagliari: Edizioni della Torre, 1996: II, 351–426; Martí, Esther. “I procuratori municipali nelle assemblee rappresentative della Corona d’Aragona nel XV secolo: il caso sardo”, Sardegna e Mediterraneo tra Medioevo ed età Moderna: 195–205. 35 Jara, José A. “Percepción de «sí»”…: 75,79–80. 36 Di Tucci, Raffaele. Il libro verde …: 302. 37 Chapters presented by Cagliari to the Magnanimous for the approval in the Cortes: Boscolo, Alberto. I Parlamenti di Alfonso il Magnanimo…: 129. 38 Chapters of Iglesias to the Parliament of 1421. Boscolo, Alberto. I Parlamenti di Alfonso il Magnanimo…: 137, 140. 39 Eiximenis, Francesc. Regiment de la cosa pública. Barcelona: Ed. Barcino, 1980.

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words that the three estates address the sovereign in the hilly parliament of 1481–1485, the idea of good governance is embraced by all, mixing concepts such as the universal benefit of the Kingdom, justice, custom and divine will, concepts that define, more beyond the oligarchies of the citizen government, the physiognomy of identity of the high spheres of power of the kingdom40. Equally, the repeated references to honour and integrity deserve particular attention, especially at the end of the 15th Century. The urban oligarchies of the Middle Ages tended to behave, like those of the Iberians, as nobles. Thus, concepts of aristocratic ethics such as honour began to spread among the urban bourgeoisie, trying to equate it with the feudal aristocracy, with whom they clashed continuously in their process of economic and political expansion41. In this way, when drawing a profile for the Sardinian urban oligarchies of this period, their interaction with the lower nobility weights considerably, either through advantageous marriages, through the purchase of feuds, or thanks to the multiple feuds giving as gratitude granted by the sovereign42. The same nobility, at the end of the Middle Ages, preferred to live in cities, a fact that increased their desire for participation in urban government43. For this reason, the main towns of the Crown in Sardinia obtained the privilege, like the Catalans, of not allowing access to the lower nobility in their council. Thus, Cagliari in 1358 obtained the privilege that prohibited the heretats to be city councillors or veguer44. In fact, the strategies that the Sardinian oligarchies, similar to those of other parts of the Crown, used to block the power cravings of the feudal aristocracy within the city and in the territories that gravitate in its orbit, contributed to the creation of their own 40 Era, Antonio. Il Parlamento sardo…: 30. 41 Navarro, Germán. “Ciudades y villas del reino de Aragón”: 214. The condition of the “ciutadans honrats” must be considered as an exclusionary element within the urban socio-institutional fabric and an instrument of control to access the positions that will play in favour of the oligarchy of the city. Fernández Trabal, Josep. “De «prohoms» a ciudadanos honrados”: 340–341. 42 Oliva, Anna M. Schena, Olivetta. “Potere regio ed autonomie cittadine”…: 155–157. 43 Diago, Máximo. “La participación de la nobleza en el gobierno de las ciudades europeas bajomedievales. Análisis comparativo”, Anuario de Estudios Medievales, 37/2 (2007): 802–806. 44 In 1511, by privilege, the military establishment may participate, although with certain reservations, in municipal management. Di Tucci, Raffaele. Il libro verde…: 306, 311–312, 440–442.

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identity. Thus, the legal, jurisdictional and privileged system granted by the monarchy – as we have pointed out – and the elective system of the municipal offices that derive from it – co-optation – openly benefited this oligarchy, facilitating its reproduction and permanence in high places of municipal management, at least until the real intervention and the imposition of the “pulled out of a list” system45. On the other hand, it is interesting to observe the monarchy’s consideration of each city, as this fact will have an impact on the image that the university was able to project to the rest of the cities of the Crown, and on its own identity, creating a hierarchy among them46. In this way, Cagliari always had a more relevant role, since as capital was benefited from a more direct management with the sovereign or his representatives and a greater control of relations with the other cities of the king. In addition, the city participated in all the parliaments of the kingdom, and obtained the privilege, as capital, to present a greater number of solicitors, as was the case for Barcelona or Valencia. His syndics were in charge of presiding over different commissions within the assemblies and acted normally as spokesmen for the Royal Arm. Likewise, Calaritan ambassadors will be almost always those sent to the court to deal with some urgent matters, even on behalf of the other cities47. Continuing always within the parliamentary theme, the study of the grievances presented by the cities of the Crown in the parliaments is another way of observing the formation of a collective identity of these oligarchies. Thus, with respect to the greuges exposed by Cagliari, L’Alguer and Iglesias in the meeting of 1421, it was highlighted the new request for privileges, the formulation of complaints against royal officials for violating the jurisdiction of the city or for abuses of power, as well as a more convenient policy regarding grain management48. And it is that on 45

Fernández Trabal, Josep. “De «prohoms» a ciudadanos honrados”: 357–362. In Cagliari the “pulled out of a list” system was imposed by Ferdinand the Catholic in 1500. Di Tucci, Raffaele. Il libro verde: 389–398; Sorgia, Giancarlo. Todde, Giovanni. Cagliari. Sei secoli di amministrazione cittadina. Cagliari: Lions International, 1981: 29–31. 46 Navarro, Germán. “Ciudades y villas del reino de Aragón”…: 213. 47 Martí, Esther. “I procuratori municipali nelle assemblee rappresentative della Corona d’Aragona nel XV secolo: il caso sardo”, Sardegna e Mediterraneo tra Medioevo ed età Moderna…:188–200. 48 Boscolo, Alberto. I Parlamenti di Alfonso il Magnanimo: 127–136. Schena, Olivetta. “Funzione e composizione della commissione degli “examinadors de greuges” nei Parlamenti del Regno di Sardegna (secc. XV–XVI). Prime note”, RiMe, 13/2: 9–29.

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the relations of the urban elites with the Crown the records of the Sardinian parliaments show at the end of the Middle Ages a notable increase in tensions, also within the urban government, a fact that entails a division of the oligarchies (which until that moment were more or less united from an identity point of view, especially in Cagliari and L’Alguer), fearing some kind of retaliation by the Crown. From the Redreç of Fernando the Catholic, we see, then, a division of the elites of the main Sardinian royal cities, between those who supported the monarchy (stimulated perhaps by the promise of new privileges and concessions of posts) and those who opposed to grant greater space to the regional power within the municipality, especially as regards fiscal aspects, although not only49. All this must be inserted in a context in which Sardinian urban elites shared a tradition based on the pact, inspired by that Catalan, with which they had become accustomed to identify themselves, and which exalted even more with time in order to justify, either politically and ethnically, their dominance over the Sardinian population. Thus, much of this urban oligarchy, although they had been born in Sardinia, as descendants of families of Iberian origin were considered natural of the Crown of Aragon. This reason influenced their decisions, showing it very often in favour of the urban Catalan oligarchies, with whom they continued fresh family, clientele and commercial ties. The crisis that affected the Crown, together with the progressive monarchical municipal interventionism and the policy of Redreç of the Católico, favoured the division of these elites among those who continued insisting on the importance of a pact based system that had benefited them openly until now and those that they aspired to obtain a power so often denied or limited by the previous ones, thanks to a policy of adhesion and fidelity to the Crown50.

49 Anatra, Bruno. “Sardegna e Corona d’Aragona nell’Età Moderna”…: 59–62. 50 Tore, Gianfranco. “Città, oligarchie e Corona nel Regno di Sardegna (XVI–XVII)”, Corts i Parlaments de la Corona d’Aragó. Unes institucions emblemàtiques en una monarquia composta, Remedios Ferrero, Lluís Guia, eds. València: Universitat de València, 2008: 450–452. Guinot, Enric. “Sobre la génesis del modelo político de la Corona de Aragón en el siglo XIII: Pactismo, Corona y Municipios”, Res publica: Revista de filosofía política, 17 (2007): 151–174.

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3. Conclusions Similar to other places in the Crown of Aragon, the oligarchies that controlled urban government founded their identity on the belonging to the Crown, on the real protection, as well as on the need to reflect on their Iberian origins in order to self-sign and legitimize themselves. In this way, the system on which a large part of the identity and ideological construction of these elites was based on the legal-economic privilege and the pact with the monarchy, in imitation of the Catalan model. In the same way, being Aragonese, Catalan, Valencian, Mallorcan, or other kingdoms of the confederation (and its descendants) as a condition of access to citizenship – and as an excluding element, as well as a unifying one-, played an important role in the configuration of the identity of this group, at least during the process of forming this ruling class that occupied a good part of the 14th Century. These elites, as this century advances, will look for their roots in a past of Iberian origin, connected with the present still with family and clientele ties latent. Thus, the government of the Sardinian cities will be defined by their membership and fidelity to the Crown, the same for which their ancestors fought and conquered the kingdom. However, paradoxically, it is a leading group capable of creating both an ideological discourse legitimizing the sovereign and the foreign component, when it will be perceived as a rival, where the pride of belonging to the nació catalana – evidently visible also in the language used, in the use of artistic, religious and cultural elements from the Iberian universe – it is accompanied by the defence of its power interests through a legislative corpus and an economic and commercial policy that would not be understood if they were considered out of an Aragonese orbit. However, with the advance of the years and the control of the Sardinian rebellion, a sense of claim of belonging to something native will be born, that without breaking with the previous speeches, will mark its own characteristics. In this sense, it is expected that new research can provide more data on the future presence of families of Sardinian origin in the municipal government and their interaction with existing ones. However, it is convenient to weigh the role of municipal taxation in shaping the identity of these oligarchies. Thus, the sophisticated tax system for the Catalan case was a mixture of interests of the monarchy – in need of money as it always was – and of the elites themselves, who

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came to manage it, progressively transforming themselves into generators of impositions, censuses and municipal debits, at the same time that they often exercised as lenders of the Crown51. For the Sardinian case, these aspects need a more in-depth study, which may indicate different common behaviour of the families in power, as well as their clientelist ties. In the same way, it is expected that new multidisciplinary studies, together with those already existing in the field of art, architecture, archaeology and literature, will allow a better definition of the identity of these oligarchies that shaped the urban governments of the Crown cities. Thus, elements such as the location of their properties and economic interests, their artistic taste, their last wills (donations, private chapels52, among other aspects), may allow to make a much broader and more reliable image of the identity of this group leader that, due to lack of space and the will to stick within the framework of urban government, this article allows us to do.

51 Sabaté, Flocel. “Municipio y monarquía en la Cataluña Bajomedieval”: 255–282. Verdés, Pere. “La ciudad en el espejo: hacienda municipal e identidad urbana en la Cataluña bajomedieval”, Anales de la Universidad de Alicante. Historia medieval, 16 (2009–2010): 165–185. Fiscalidad de Estado y fiscalidad municipal en los reinos hispánicos medievales, Manuel Sánchez, Denis Menjot, coords. Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2006. Turull, Max. El gobierno de la ciudad medieval. Administración y finanzas en las ciudades medievales catalanas. Barcelona: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2009. 52 See in this regard, as example: Meloni, M. Giuseppina. “Salvezza dell’anima e prestigio sociale. La fondazione di benefici e cappelle nella Cagliari del Quattrocento”, Élites urbane e organizzazione sociale in area mediterranea fra tardo Medioevo e prima Età Moderna, M. Giuseppina Meloni, ed. Cagliari: CNR-ISEM, 2013: 239– 273.

Giuseppe Seche Università degli Studi di Cagliari

The Navarro family. Mediterranean networks and activities of a family of fifteenth-century Valencian merchants*

History has amply documented how Sardinia, in the aftermath of its entry into the Catalan-Aragonese commonwealth, had to overcome the major upheaval of the bellicose fourteenth century and await the subsequent one in order to join the Mediterranean’s trading routes. It is in this situation that in the island’s major ports – those of Cagliari and Alghero – Sardinian, Catalan, and Italian merchants, engaged in exporting, importing, and redistributing wares, resumed operation1. *

1

This study is part of the activities carried out by the research unit of the Department of History, Cultural Assets, and Territory of the University of Cagliari, directed by prof. Sergio Tognetti, within the project E pluribus unum. Il profilo identitario sardo dal Medioevo alla contemporaneità, promoted by the Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea (ISEM-CNR), and coordinated by dr. Luciano Gallinari (PI). A portion of the results dealt with in the essay was submitted with the title The Navarros. Valencian merchants in the Sardinia of the XV century, in the ’International colloquium: Identity Economimcs: a comparative perspective on the Crown of Aragon and the Low Countries, organised by and held at the University of Zaragoza on 07–08 June 2017. The study will use the abbreviations AAR (Antico Archivio Regio), ACCCa (Archivio Capitolare della Cattedrale di Cagliari), ANSCa (Atti notarili sciolti della Tappa di insinuazione di Cagliari, the Cagliari records of loose notary deeds), ASCa (Archivio di Stato di Cagliari) and ASDCa (Archivio Storico della Diocesi di Cagliari). Among the studies on Sardinia’s commercial role in the Crown of Aragon in the fifteenth century, Del Treppo, Mario. I mercanti catalani e l’espansione della Corona d’Aragona nel secolo XV. Napoli: L’arte tipografica, 1972 remains paramount; he is also responsible for the definition of the “Catalan-Aragonese Commonwealth”. The theme was later dealt with in Maccioni, Elena. “Il ruolo del Consolato del Mare di Barcellona nella guerra catalano-aragonese contro i giudici d’Arborea”, Commercio, finanza e guerra nella Sardegna tardo medievale, Olivetta Schena, Sergio Tognetti, dirs. Roma: Viella, 2017: 167–196; Soldani, Maria Elisa. I mercanti catalani e la Corona d’Aragona in Sardegna. Roma: Viella, 2017. Tognetti, Sergio. “Il ruolo della Sardegna nel commercio mediterraneo del Quattrocento. Alcune considerazioni sulla base di fonti toscane”, Archivio storico italiano», 163 (2005): 87–132; Tognetti, Sergio. “L’economia della Sardegna nel tardo Medioevo: spunti di riflessione a margine di nuove ricerche”, Rime. Rivista

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Starting from this context, this work analyzes the role and the figures of Garcia, Guillem, and Melchior Navarro, leading members of a family of Valencian merchants with close ties to the island, who, between the 1460s and the first decade of the sixteenth century, worked in a Mediterranean triangular trade whose vertices were Valencia, Cagliari, and the Aragonese markets on the Italian peninsula2. The study of these figures is possible

2

dell’Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea, 18 (2017): 55–71. Zedda, Corrado. “La piazza commerciale di Cagliari tra Barcellona e Napoli nel XV secolo attraverso la lettura degli atti notarili dell’Archivio storico dei protocolli di Barcellona e dell’Archivio di Stato di Cagliari”, Estudis Historics i Documents dels Arxius de Protocols, 15 (1997): 77–92; Zedda, Corrado. Cagliari: un porto commerciale nel Mediterraneo del Quattrocento. Napoli: Istituto per l’Oriente C.A. Nallino, 2001; Zedda, Corrado. “La Sardegna nel ′400: un crocevia sulla rotta del Levante”, La Mediterrània de la Corona d’Aragó, segles XIIIXVI & VII Centenari de la Sentència Arbitral de Torrellas, 1304–2004: XVIII Congrés d’Història de la Corona d’Aragó, Rafeal Narbona Vizcaíno, dir. València: Universitat de València, 2005: II, 1351–1368. On the economic situation of the island see: Anatra, Bruno. “Economia sarda e commercio mediterraneo nel basso Medioevo e nell’Età moderna”, Storia dei sardi e della Sardegna. III: L’Età moderna. Dagli aragonesi alla fine del dominio spagnolo, Bruno Anatra, Antonello Mattone, Raimondo Turtas. Milano: Jaca Book, 1989: 109–216; Tangheroni, Marco. “Il “Regnum Sardiniae et Corsicae” nell’espansione mediterranea della Corona d’Aragona. Aspetti economici”, XIV Congresso di Storia della Corona d’Aragona. Sassari: Carlo Delfino, 1993–1996: I, 49–88; Manconi, Francesco. “Traffici commerciali e integrazione culturale nel Mediterraneo occidentale fra Quattro e Cinquecento”, Studi Storici, 36, (1995): 1051–1073; Oliva, Anna Maria. Schena, Olivetta. “Il Regno di Sardegna tra Spagna ed Italia nel Quattrocento. Cultura e società: alcune riflessioni”, Descubrir el Levante por el Poniente. I viaggi e le esplorazioni attraverso le collezioni della Biblioteca universitaria di Cagliari, Luciano Gallinari, ed. Cagliari: IRII-CNR, 2002: 101–134. Lastly, for an overview of political events, see the summary by Casula, Francesco Cesare. La Sardegna aragonese. Sassari: Chiarella, 1990 and Manconi, Francesco. La Sardegna al tempo degli Asburgo, Nuoro: Il maestrale, 2010. On the relations between Sardinia and Valencia: Guiral-Hadziiossif, Jacqueline. Valencia puerto mediterráneo en el siglo XV (1410–1525). València: Edicions Alfons el Magnànim, 1989, and Hinojosa Montalvo, José. “Los contactos comerciales entre Valencia y Cerdeña durante el siglo XV”, XIV Congresso di Storia della Corona d’Aragona: III, 503–526; Igual Luis, David. “Comercio y operadores económicos entre Valencia y Cerdeña durante el reinado de los Reyes Católicos”, Sardegna, Spagna e Mediterraneo. Dai Re Cattolici al Secolo d’Oro, Bruno Anatra, Giovanni Murgia, dirs. Roma: Carocci, 2004: 33–56; Igual Luis, David. “Letras de cambio de Cagliari a Valencia (1481–1499)”, Archivio Storico Sardo, 49 (2014): 207–305; Seche, Giuseppe. “Il carteggio mercantile Dessì-Navarro: una fonte per la storia delle relazioni commerciali tra Valenza e la Sardegna nella seconda metà del Quattrocento”, Commercio, finanza e guerra…: 197–233. On Valencians in Cagliari: Villanueva Morte, Concepción. “La presencia de valencianos y aragoneses en la documentación notaril cagliaritana del siglo XV”, Anuario de estudios medievales, 38 (2008): 27–63.

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thanks to the discovery of a series of commercial papers sent from Valencia to Cagliari and addressed to Antoni and Arnau Dessì, correspondents of the Navarro family; the documentation, which at any rate represents only a minimum part of a larger correspondence exchanged with the island’s economic operators, is also extraordinary given the rarity of private and notary documentation attributable to late Medieval Sardinia3. By presenting the normal characteristics of mercantile correspondence, with financial/commercial indications and, frequently, political/social ones as well4, this source makes it possible to reconstruct trading relationships and some of the family affairs of these merchants.

1.  The Navarros: a Mediterranean family In outlining the family profile of the three Navarros, we must first record their degree of kinship5. Garcia and Melchior were cousins, while Guillem was their uncle. Married with at least one small son in 1488, Guillem 3

4

5

Oliva, Anna Maria. “Cagliari catalana nel Quattrocento. Società, memoria e identità”, Élites urbane e organizzazione sociale in area mediterranea fra tardo medioevo e prima età Moderna, Maria Giuseppina Meloni, ed. Cagliari: ISEM-CNR, 2013: 91–133 (95–96) and, for an overview of notary sources, Schena, Olivetta. “Notai e notariato nella Sardegna del tardo Medioevo”, Élites urbane e organizzazione sociale…: 325–353. For a general overview, see Melis, Federigo. Documenti per la storia economica dei secoli XIII–XVI. Firenze: Olschki, 1972; Frangioni, Luciana. “Il carteggio commerciale della fine del XIV secolo: layout e contenuto economico”, Reti Medievali Rivista, 10 (2009): 123–161; Viu Fandos, Maria. “Información y estrategias comerciales en la Corona de Aragón. La correspondencia de la Compañía Torralba (1430–1432)”, Consumo, comercio y transformaciones culturales en la baja Edad media: Aragón, siglos XIV–XV, Carlos Laliena Corbera, Mario Lafuente Gómez, dirs. Zaragoza: Universidad de Zaragoza, 2016: 125–146. On private information: Giagnacovo, Maria. “Guerre, epidemie e privato: il contenuto extra-economico del carteggio commerciale”, Reti Medievali Rivista, 10 (2009): 164–199. As this is ongoing research, it bears pointing out that the Iberian archives, and especially the Valencian ones, remain to be verified; their analysis will certainly yield new information. Notes on the Navarro family may be found in Sáiz Serrano, Jorge. Caballeros del rey. Nobleza y guerra en el reinado de Alfonso el Magnánimo. València: Universitat de València, 2008: 378–379. As regards the Navarro family present in Cagliari, in addition to the indications found in this study, see: Villanueva Morte, Concepción. “La presencia de valencianos…” and Igual Luis, David. “Comercio y operadores económicos…”.

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resided in the city of Valencia and had a small, fast ship (saettia) which, in the wintertime, was anchored in the port of Cullera. His bond with Sardinia, at least the economic one, had to have been more extended in time than that borne witness to by our correspondence (1482–1488): in fact, with the act of 11 September 1479, the Cagliari attorney Iohannes de Santa Cruce appointed him his representative6, while on his behalf, in 1490, Petrus Ballester protested in Valencia two letters of exchange sent from Cagliari7. Beyond the island, his dealings developed in the city of Naples, as shown – if there is no case of mistaken identity – by the letters of exchange of 1469 and of the decade from 1488–14998. Residing in Valencia, Garcia on the other hand appeared to have a link with Cagliari that was not exclusively commercial: in fact, the notary documentation records the presence on the island of a Garcia Navarro between 1468 and 1474, defining him as a Valencian, residing in the Sardinian capital9. The frequency of these movements is confirmed by a paper announcing the organization of an upcoming journey in March 148410, while the real estate, including the house belonging to his father and a workshop located in the Jewish quarter rented to the Jew Bondia, allows us also to suppose a continuous stay in Cagliari11. Lastly, Melchior, a resident of Valencia, moved between Alicante, Cullera, and Maiorca12. In business with the merchants active in Valencia (for example, Joan Peris, for whom he brought wool in from Sardinia), 6 7

Guillem was ‘mercator civitate Valentie’: ASCa. ANSCa. Not. Barbens, 51/11, ff. 49r. The first protest, dated 02 June 1490, was a letter of exchange of 50 solds sent from Cagliari on 01 February 1490; the second, on 03 June 1490, on another exchange of 15 golden ducats sent from Cagliari on 01 February 1490: in both cases, the beneficiary was Guillem Navarro. ASCa. Pergamene laiche, no. 6 and 81. 8 Igual Luis, David. “Entre Valencia y Nápoles. Banca y hombres de negocios desde el reinado de Alfonso el Magnánimo”, En la España Medieval, 24 (2001): 103–143: 128, 135and 141 note 55. 9 ASCa. ANSCa. Not. Barbens, 51/1, ff. 3v-4r; not. Barbens, 51/3, ff. 3r-v; not. Barbens, 51/5, ff. 22v-23r, 23v-24r e 23r-v; ASCa. AAR, BC.6, ff. 120v-122r, (in Tasca, Cecilia. Ebrei e società in Sardegna nel XV secolo: fonti archivistiche e nuovi spunti di ricerca. Firenze: Giuntina, 2008: 128 nn. 328–329). In 1463, Garcia Navarro received a letter from Giovanni Dedoni in Valencia: Villanueva Morte, Concepción. “La presencia de valencianos…”: 41. 10 ASDCa. ACCCa. 296, Letter of 1483, December, 31. 11 ASDCa. ACCCa. 296, Letters of 1487, November, 14; 1488, January, 31; 1488, March, 25. 12 On Melchior, see also Igual Luis, David. “Comercio y operadores económicos…”: 50.

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in July 1489 he was engaged in provisioning the royal troops13. His business dealings extended to Naples, a city with which he traded in fabrics, and from which Bernadí de Bas sent an exchange of 300 ducats (1488)14, to Palermo, where he was in contact with Fransi Robiols15, and to Rome, where he shipped rice (1491)16. He remained active until the first quarter of the sixteenth century, as shown, if there is no mistaken identity, by the data present in the Valencian records of the Peaje de Mar duty which, for the first twenty years of the century, conserve traces of the dealings of one Melchior Navarro17. These three figures are joined by two women whose names are unfortunately unknown. These were the mother and sister of Melchior, both permanent residents in the city of Cagliari. A widow, the mother had approached Antoni Sobirats, an economic operator active in Cagliari, frequently cited in the correspondence as a counterpart in loans and letters of exchange with Valencia. Although for the time being, no additional information on this figure can be offered, it appears that as early as 1487 there was a bond between the woman and Sobirats18; the relationship seems to have gone in a more personal direction, in spite of the low enthusiasm of Melchior who, between 1492 and 1493, appears to have hoped for a break between the two, authorizing his correspondents on the island to grant some loans to his mother so she would not suffer from a lack of money19. Quite similar was the condition of his sister, at marriageable age around 1490. According to a series of letters, the mother had agreed to 13 ASDCa. ACCCa. 296, Letter of 1489, July, 13. 14 ASDCa. ACCCa. 296, Letters of 1488, July 04; 1488, October, 26. On the Catalan and Valencian community in Naples: Feniello, Amedeo. “Catalani a Napoli nel XV secolo. Aristocrazia, artigiani, imprenditori economici”, Élites urbane e organizzazione sociale…: 33–45. 15 ASDCa. ACCCa. 296, Letter 1489, July, 14. 16 ASDCa. ACCCa. 296, 1491, November, 22 or 23 (uncertain reading). On the mercantile activities of Catalans and Valencians in Rome: Vaquero Piñeiro, Manuel. “Mercaderes catalanes y valencianos en el Consulado de Roma”, Revista d’historia medieval, IX (1998): 151–170. 17 Salvador Esteban, Emilia. “Aproximación al tráfico marítimo entre la isla de Cerdeña y la ciudad de Valencia en el siglo XVI”, XIV Congresso di Storia della Corona d’Aragona…: II/2, 769–787: 780. 18 ASDCa. ACCCa. 296, Letter of 1487, February, 20. 19 ASDCa. ACCCa. 297, Letters of 1492, November, 15; 1493, January, 13. In a receipt, Antoni Sobirats certified having received a sum from Arnau Dessì ‘per part de mon filastre Melxior’: ASDCa. ACCCa. 296, Receipt of 1487, February, 15.

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a marriage for her daughter without having involved Melchior, who was decidedly discontented with the choice. Saying he was willing to offer his own contribution for the dowry, he specified, however, that he would pay only for a good catch: ‘home asentat e no a mariner’20, in no case, he added, was he ready to respect the will of his mother who was acting “contra ma volentat”21. If, on the other hand, the woman would mend her ways, Melchior certainly would not have refused to do his part, choosing a spouse who was better but still to his sister’s liking, or committing himself to a greater economic effort: in fact, he said he was ready to offer a yearly income of 30 lire to allow the young woman access to a cloister in Cagliari, or the Valencian one of the Santa Trinità22. Unfortunately, these letters do not specify the name of the groom chosen by the mother who, based on a series of clues, might be recognized as Miquel Pastor23, despite these great uncertainties, the presented events are somewhat interesting, as they allow a margin of female autonomy to be established in the management of personal and matrimonial relationship, perhaps also understandable given the distance of Melchior who resided in Valencia. These biographical data show a permanent presence in Sardinia of some members of the Navarro family. However, it was not possible to trace the origin of this relationship which, based on the information known thus far, cannot be dated backto a period earlier than the mid-fifteenth century24. However, the fact that Melchior was defined as “mercator Calleri” in the Valencian records25, that his mother was in Cagliari with his sister, and that Garcia possessed real estate in the Sardinian capital, including a paternal home, might reinforce the hypothesis of a family residence perhaps for family issues (for example, following marriages?) or professional business.

20 21 22 23

ASDCa. ACCCa. 296, Letter of 1490, September, 17. ASDCa. ACCCa. 296, Letter of 1490, October, s.d. ASDCa. ACCCa. 296, Letter of 1490, September, 11. ASDCa. ACCCa. 296, Letter of 1490, October, s.d. Pastor was probably a shipbuilder or ship’s captain, constantly moving between Cagliari and Valencia. 24 Although having to grapple with the spread of a rather common surname, the Sardinian sources show other people named Navarro who, however, for the time being, cannot be linked to those in question: Seche, Giuseppe. “Il carteggio mercantile…”: 203–204. 25 Igual Luis, David. “Comercio y operadores económicos…”: 50.

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2. The Mediterranean dealings of the Navarro family As we do not possess the accounting records, it is very complex to comprehend the general level of dealings of the Navarro family, a business that was articulated among the various markets of the Aragonese Crown, and to verify the actual profitability of the Sardinian operations. Given the little information, it is possible that they, like other Valencian merchants, boasted a fair degree of diversification in their activities26: in this sense, we may recall Melchior who, alongside the normal selling of products, was engaged in provisioning the royal troops; moreover, with Naples he traded in fabrics, while he shipped rice to Rome, demonstrating that he was an economic operator capable of approaching the system of state contracts, and of knowing how to move on a Mediterranean scale. The type of business that is best known is the Sardinian one, in which the Navarro family appears to have a certain degree of specialization, dedicating itself to the exporting of the typical products of the agricultural and pastoral economy27. The documentation, although indicating a broad variety of articles they dealt in28, records the prevalence of exporting of cheese29 and pasta30, goods in demand on both Iberian and Italian tables. Other 26 Cruselles, Enrique. Los mercaderes de Valencia…: 140–143. 27 This is a characteristic common to other operators active on the island: Tognetti, Sergio. “Il ruolo della Sardegna…”: 108–112. 28 On the products exported from or imported to the island: Igual Luis, David. “Comercio y operadores económicos…”: 52, note 6; Galoppini, Laura. “I registri doganali del porto di Cagliari (1351–1429)”, Quel mar che la terra inghirlanda. In ricordo di Marco Tangheroni, Franco Cardini, Maria Luisa Ceccarelli Lemut, eds. Roma-Pisa: CNR-Pacini, 2007: I, 399–406; Seche, Giuseppe. “Il carteggio mercantile…”: 208– 217 and 230–233. On the exports of agricultural and pastoral production: Simbula, Pinuccia Franca. “Nel “regno delle pecore”: cuoi, lane e formaggi nella Sardegna medievale”, La pastorizia mediterranea. Storia e diritto (secoli XI–XX), Antonello Mattone, Pinuccia Franca Simbula, eds. Roma: Carocci, 2011: 748–780. 29 For the production and exporting of cheese, see: Tognetti, Sergio. “Il ruolo della Sardegna…”; Simbula, Pinuccia Franca. “Nel “regno…”: 766–774 and Naso, Irma. “La produzione lattiero-casearia nell’Italia del tardo Medioevo. Formaggi sardi e siciliani”, La pastorizia mediterranea…: 812–829; interesting, although earlier, are the data on Sardinian cheese sales originating from the Datini company: Giagnacovo, Maria. Formaggi in tavola. Commercio e consumo del formaggio nel basso Medioevo. Un contributo dell’Archivio Datini di Prato. Roma: Aracne, 2011: 28–29. 30 In this regard, see Olla Repetto, Gabriella. Ferrante, Carla. “L’alimentazione a Cagliari nel ′400”, Medioevo. Saggi e rassegne, XIV (1989): 10–77 (31–32); Galoppini,

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staples departing for Valencia, albeit in lesser quantity, were wheat31, hams32, wine33, and horses, in addition to wool and hides34, most likely destined for Valencian manufacturing. If this is the general picture of the exported goods, there appears to be a broader variety of raw materials, of processed goods, and of semi-processed goods imported to the island. Pitch, needed to maintain vessels, arrived in great quantities from Ibiza, Palma, and San Feliu, while esparto strands were indispensable for binding cheeses. In addition to ceramics, rice, needles, spices, dyes, perfumes, and slaves, the island received at different times leathers35, cloth36 and ready-made

31

32

33

34

35

36

Laura. “Le commerce des pâtes alimentaires dans les Aduanas Sardas”, Medievales: Langue, textes, histoire, 36 (1999): 111–127. On the production and procedures for exporting Sardinian wheat: Tangheroni, Marco. Aspetti del commercio dei cereali nei Paesi della Corona d’Aragona. 1. La Sardegna. Cagliari: CNR-CSRII, 1981; Cioppi, Alessandra. “Distribuzione e commercio dei cereali nel Mediterraneo basso medievale. Il grano a Castell de Càller dal XIV al XV”, Sa massarìa. Ecologia storica dei sistemi di lavoro contadino in Sardegna tra medioevo e età moderna. Insediamento e uso del territorio, Giovanni Serreli, Rita T. Melis, Charles French, Federica Sulas, eds. Cagliari: Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea del CNR, 2017: I, 249–294. On the trade in Sardinian meat in the fourteenth century, see: Galoppini, Laura. “Commercio di carne salata e lardo dalla Sardegna durante il Trecento”, Dal mondo antico all’età contemporanea: studi in onore di Manlio Brigaglia offerti dal Dipartimento di storia dell’Università di Sassari. Roma: Carocci, 2001: 309–324. In particular, mention is made of the essays contained in Storia della vite e del vino in Sardegna, Maria Luisa Di Felice, Antonello Mattone, eds. Roma-Bari: Laterza, 2000: 27–63 and 74–142. On the production and exporting of Sardinian wool to Italy, see: Manca, Ciro. “La lana di Sardegna: cenni sulla produzione e sulla distribuzione nei secoli XIII–XVII”, La lana come materia prima. I fenomeni della sua produzione e circolazione nei secoli XIII–XVIII, Marco Spallanzani, ed. Firenze: Olschki, 1974: 169–176; Tognetti, Sergio. “Il ruolo della Sardegna…”: 103–107; Galoppini, Laura. “’Lana Sardesca’. Qualità e usi nella Toscana tardo medievale”, La pastorizia mediterranea…: 853–877. On the exporting of hides: Galoppini, Laura. “Importazione di cuoio dalla Sardegna a Pisa nel Trecento”, Il cuoio e le pelli in Toscana: produzione e mercato nel tardo Medioevo e nell’Età moderna, Sergio Gensini, ed. Pisa: Pacini, 2000: 93–118 and Simbula, Pinuccia Franca. “Nel “regno…”: 757–766. Aparici Martin, Joaquín. “Pieles, zapateros, curtidurías: el trabajo del cuero en la zona septentrional del Reino de Valencia (ss. XIV–XV)”, Millars: espai i historia, 35 (2012): 49–68. On the Valencian manufacturing industry, Navarro Espinach, Germán. Los Orígenes de la sederia valenciana (siglos XV–XVI). València: Ajuntament de València, 1999.

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garments destined, depending on the value, for the various components of Sardinian society. Therefore, given these brief notes, it appears that it may be stated that the Navarros belonged to that typical Sardinian-Valencian trading circuit based on the sale on the island of cloth and other types of semi-processed goods, the proceeds from which were then used to purchase and export agricultural and pastoral products to be resold in Valencia37.

3. The “bon amichs” in Sardinian business In plying this steady trade with Sardinia, the three Navarros had to depend on a network of people, ‘bon amichs’, who guaranteed their collaboration and assistance. This intertwining of relationships, which extended from the family and trading environment to the world of the urban and feudal aristocracy and of state functionaries, may be partially reconstructed thanks to the examined correspondence. An initial element of the network was the merchants themselves who made mutually available their own resources present on the island38. However unclear it is whether Garcia, Guillem, and Melchior had a commercial agreement, the letters demonstrate that the three operators frequently exchanged equipment and knowledge, thus promoting their respective dealings: by way of example, mention may be made of the containers from Cagliari that Guillem made available to his nephew Garcia, who needed them to transport goods to be sent to Valencia39. This family-style collaboration is even more evident when the correspondence records the logistical 37 For Valencian textile manufacturing, Sardinia was already a market in the fifteenth century: Igual Luis, David. Navarro Espinach, Germán. “Relazioni economiche tra Valenza e l’Italia nel basso Medioevo”, Medioevo Saggi e Rassegne, 20 (1995): 61–97 (83–84). This trading circuit was also typical of other Valencian merchants, like Miquel Alcanyís: Igual Luis, David. “Comercio y operadores económicos…”: 38. 38 The family was the nucleus of Valencian businesses: see Cruselles, Enrique. Los mercaderes de Valencia en la edad media. Lleida: Editorial Milenio, 2001: 120–136 and 161–164. On the organization of Valencian companies: Cruselles, Enrique. Los comerciantes valencianos del siglo XV y sus libros de cuentas. Castelló de la Plana: Universitat Jaume I, 2007. 39 ASDCa. ACCCa. 296, Letter of 1483, August, 12.

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and financial support that Melchior’s mother, permanently residing in Cagliari, could guarantee. For example, in September 1487, Melchior wrote that the woman could grant a loan to purchase pasta and that, at the same time, she would make her warehouses available to store it pending the passage of a ship40. A second hub in the network was that of the merchants operating on the island. In this case, the support could be justified by a feeling of professional solidarity, founded upon a constant exchange of favours, or by the existence of specific trading agreements, a fact that would lead to supposing the existence of shareholders, agents, growers, and representatives41. Prominent among the major figures in this system, many of whom have obscure biographical details, are the Valencians Miquel Alcanyís and Gaspar Valentí, devoted to trade with the island42, followed for example by Gabriel Dianet, Bernardí Genoves, and Pere Xetart. Among the Sardinians, mention may be made of Antoni, Arnau, and Nicolau Dessì, a Cagliari family close to the city chapter, with major interests in the Mediterranean trade43, Pere Carnicer44, Andreu, and Gavi Coroy45, and Nicolau Gessa from Iglesias. The latter, a merchant between Barcelona, Cagliari, Naples, Rome, and Valencia, was lord of some villas in the Sulcis and Sigerro areas, a member of the military branch of Parliament, and linked to the Cagliari chapter46. In parallel with the management of their own affairs, these figures guaranteed the Navarro family the procurement of products 40 ‘E si vos no teniu loch per metre los aquí en vestra quasa, los poreu metre en quasa de ma mare ab una flasada sobre les pots, e no se guastaran’, ASDCa. ACCCa. 296, Letter of 1487, September, 21. 41 Cruselles, Enrique. Los mercaderes de Valencia…: 145–168. 42 Igual Luis, David. “Comercio y operadores económicos…”: 38–39. 43 On the relationship between the Dessì and the Navarro families: Seche, Giuseppe. “Il carteggio mercantile…”. 44 On the Carnisers, with Pere, father and son residing in Valencia and Cagliari, and Joan, son and brother of the above: Igual Luis, David. “Comercio y operadores económicos…”: 48. Their trading activity found room for dealing in cheeses and fabrics. 45 In 1482, a priest named Gavi Coroy appeared as witness in Cagliari in a bill of receipt signed by Brianda Carroz y de Mur: Tasca, Cecilia. Ebrei e società…: 306, n. 828. Gavi himself, registered in Valencia, was to be canon of the chapter house of Cagliari and Dolianova: Igual Luis, David. “Comercio y operadores económicos…”: 49. 46 In effect, the relationship between the Navarro and Gessa families appears quite similar, if not actually even stronger, than that between the Valencian and the Dessì family. Of use are the considerations proposed by Igual Luis, David. “Letras de cambio…”: 233–236 and Igual Luis, David. “Comercio y operadores económicos…”: 49. On the Gessa family see. Salis, Mauro. Rotte mediterranee della pittura. Artisti e

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to be sent to Valencia, and the sale of those directed to the island; on the other hand, the three Valencians could return the favour by operating as their correspondents in the sale of goods on the Iberian market. As regards the connection with the members of the Sardinian aristocracy, among others, the papers show the names of Pere Aymerich, a Cagliari merchant engaged in the leasing of the customs house qand lord of Gesturi, Vicent Cavaller, merchant and later first representative of the city of Cagliari during the Parliament of 1504–151147, and Galceran Julià, a member of the military Stamento in Parliament of 149748. Moreover, some papers refer to dealings with Brianda de Mur, widow of the viceroy Nicolau Carróz, lady of the fief of Quirra, with interests in the grain trade and in the leasing of Oristano’s fishponds49: according to the sources, the noblewoman had committed to sending dozens of horses to Guillem Navarro. In this way, the Valencian could exploit the exemption from export duties she enjoyed, a fact that led to a considerable savings in costs50, and took advantage of the support of one of the most influential voices in the island’s feudal world to resolve intricate commercial and financial questions51. The aristocratic network of the Navarros then opened to the powerful Alghero Jewish family of the Carcassona, whose members had close ties to the viceroy’s court and to the magistracies of the kingdom52. Particularly prominent among the Carcassonas was the name

47

48 49

50 51

52

committenti tra Sardegna e Catalogna nella prima Età moderna. Perpignan: Université de Perpignan, 2016: 141–143. I Parlamenti di Giovanni Dusay e Ferdinando Girón de Rebolledo (1495, 1497, 1500, 1504–1511), Anna Maria Oliva, Olivetta Schena, eds. Cagliari: Consiglio Regionale della Sardegna, 1998: 429–440. I Parlamenti di Giovanni Dusay…: 201–202. On the noblewoman see. Costa, Maria-Mercé. Violant Carroç, una comtessa dissortada, Barcelona: Dalmau, 1973 and Olla Repetto, Gabriella. “Note sul viceregno del valenzano Ximen Pérez Scrivà de Romaní in Sardegna (1479–1487)”, Archivio Storico Sardo, 48 (2013): 223–256. In 1482, Brianda controlled the rights to the fishponds of Oristano, and participated in the grain trade: Tasca, Cecilia. Ebrei e società…: 311, n. 842; 312, n. 848 e 318, n. 872. On the 1483 deal: ASDCa. ACCCa. 296, Letters of 1483, June, 11; 1483, October, 21. On that of 1486: ASDCa. ACCCa. 296, Letter of 1486, January, 22. With regard to the collection of a letter of exchange of 315 lire, Guillem Navarro could count on Brianda who, with her knowledge, would certainly have interceded in his favour before the viceroy: ASDCa. ACCCa. 295, Letter of 1483, January, 30. On the Carcassona family, see Sorgia, Giancarlo. “Una famiglia di ebrei in Sardegna: i Carcassona”, Studi sardi, XVII (1959): 287–308 and, most recently, Meir, Amira. “La ketubbah di Šelomoh Carcassona ebreo sardo del XV secolo”, Materia giudaica,

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of Mosè, married to Clara, who was match maker and money changer (cursor coralium and curritor auris) in the city of Alghero (1467) and at the Sassari customs house (1470)53; his connections with power were clear starting in 1467, with his appointment as curritor auris taking place at the request of the viceroy Nicolau Carroz , and with the failure of the attempts to oust him from the acquired offices, thanks to the sovereign’s support; in 1482, he purchased the three-year contract of the customs house of Oristano and of the incontrade of Ocier, Goceano, Mandrolisai and of the Campidani of Oristano region54. His enormous resources were relied on by both private parties and officials of the kingdom, as shown by the loans granted to the aforementioned Pere Aymerich, to Gaspare Fabra, the future royal prosecutor, and to the royal curia55; in parallel with these interests, Mosè took part in the grain trade56. It therefore comes as no surprise that a person of this calibre was in a commercial and financial relationship with the Navarros; but however much the outlines of the question escape us, the connection was in this case unfortunate: in fact, the documentation provides a glimpse of a debt that a disgraced Mosè could not or did not intend to pay to Melchior; the latter’s correspondents, perhaps fearing this figure’s power, do not appear to have had the strength to demand this figure and avoided appealing to the kingdom’s magistracies or requesting seizure of assets57. It is unclear whether the debt was ever collected by the Valencian, given that in October 1488, news arrived of Mosè’s death58 and,

53

54 55 56 57

58

XIV (2009): 149–158. Part of the documentation of use for reconstructing the events is kept at ASCa: here, reference is to be made to the document summaries published in Tasca, Cecilia. Ebrei e società… Tasca Cecilia. Ebrei e società…: (on the Alghero assignments) 246, n. 665; 248, nn. 667–668; 280, n. 761; 297, n. 812 e 299, n. 814; (on the Sassari assignment) 255, nn. 696–697; 281, n. 762; 294, n. 799; 298, n. 813; 299, n. 814 e 316–317, nn. 863–864. Tasca, Cecilia. Ebrei e società…: 307–311, nn. 833–837 and 840. Tasca, Cecilia. Ebrei e società…: 331, nn. 911–912; 274, n. 744; 306, n. 828; 311, n. 842; 312, n. 848; 315, n. 858 and 319, n. 873. Tasca, Cecilia. Ebrei e società…: 315, n. 860 and 318, n. 872. ASDCa. ACCCa. 296, Letters of 1488, March, 23; 1488 April 28. Melchior Navarro wrote to Arnau Dessì: ‘dieu que en Mosé no es aquí: vos dich que ho a mi man dit que es aquí e vos no lo gosau anugar en res. Axí, si no lo aveu en cor de fer dieu mo que per molts de favor que el tinga ab lo virey, molt més ni tinch yo ab dit virey per amor de mon honcle en Guilem Navarro’: ASDCa. ACCCa. 296, Letter of 1488, May, 15. ASDCa. ACCCa. 296, Letter, 1488, October, 26.

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in November, that of the seizure of his assets59: as late as 1490, in fact, the debt was still unpaid and Melchior had received confirmation from a person close to the Sardinian viceroy that none of his employees had put on pressure in this sense60. The kingdom’s officials were the final element in the network of “bon amichs”. Among them, the Navarro family could boast relations with the viceroy Iñigo López de Mendoza and with the royal prosecutor Joan Fabra61. The former, Valencian in origin and with close ties to Ferdinand II, led the island from 1486 to 1491, with the task of carrying out an administrative reorganization of the kingdom. Perhaps even before reaching the island, he was close to Guillem who, at various times, invoked his friendship to have favourable treatment62; in April 1488, for example, the name of López de Mendoza returned with regard to the already mentioned debt contracted by Mosè Carcassona: if the powerful Jew were to appeal to the viceroy, Melchior informed his correspondent Arnau Dessì who would have relied on his uncle Guillem, well aware that ‘si dit Mosé es de cassa del virei vos haureu més favor que no farà el, per causa de mon honcle en Guilem Navarro’63. Similar benefits were also guaranteed, again to Guillem, by the relationship with the royal procurator Fabra, who would not have

59 ASDCa. ACCCa. 296, Letter, 1488, November, 18. The same information comes from a paper of July 1489, in which it is read that it had been the royal prosecutor to order the seizure: ASDCa. ACCCa. 296, Letter 1489, July, 13. 60 ASDCa. ACCCa. 296, Letter 1490, October, s.d. The same concept is expressed in the ASDCa. ACCCa. 296, Letter of 1490, October, 19. 61 On the viceroy López de Mendoza: Mateu Ibars, Josefina. Los virreyes de Cerdeña. Fuentes para su estudio. Padova: CEDAM, 1964: I, 156–157 e De Moxó y Montoliu, Francisco. “La verdadera identidad del virrey de Cerdeña Iñigo Lopez de Mendoza (1486–1491) y su ciudadanía valenciana”, XIV Congresso di Storia della Corona d’Aragona…: II/1, 351–373; I Parlamenti di Giovanni Dusay…: 45–46; Olla Repetto, Gabriella. “Note sul viceregno valenzano Ximen Pérez Scrivà de Romani (1479– 1487)”, Archivio storico sardo, 48 (2013): 223–256. On the royal procurator: Olla Repetto, Gabriella. Studi sulle istituzioni amministrative e giudiziarie della Sardegna nei secoli XIV e XV. Cagliari: Deputazione di Storia Patria per la Sardegna, 2005: 107–120. 62 For example, with regard to an undefined question, Melchior wrote to Arnau Dessì that he did not send spediva ‘letra del virei perque ja diu mon honcle que li fa amprament’: ASDCa. ACCCa. 296, Letter of 1488, s.d (but received in Valencia on 1488, March, 08). 63 ASDCa. ACCCa. 296, Letter of 1488, April 28.

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created any difficulty in granting the embarkation licenses needed to transport horses.64 A system composed in this way can be taken as an example of the hundreds of networks and relationships that crossed the Mediterranean and that, in fact, were the backbone of trade, allowing the passage and exchange of products, information, and favours. The bond with merchants, competent in the commercial operations and with good knowledge of the territory of operation, guaranteed the Navarros the possibility of selecting the goods and of moving, quickly and safely, large amounts of money; on the other hand, that of the aristocrats and officials offered facilities and support in resolving the thorniest problems. However, these networks were not a closed system but, to the contrary, an interconnected, open one in constant change: all the hubs in the “Navarro network,” in fact, were, in their turn, linchpins in their own networks, which they used to carry out their own business, and part of other systems of which the documentation currently allows only a glimpse. Proof of this, for example, is the behaviour of the Cagliari figure Antoni Dessì who, despite the connection with Garcia Navarro, had preferred to send products to one Foguet, most likely another Valencian merchant with whom he was evidently in contact65; in February 1494, however, Melchior made his network available to third parties, asking Arnau Dessì to help the young Miquel Sanxis: Johan Sanxis, the father, in fact turned to Navarro so that he might support him in his business trip to the island66. Of course, these relationships could be turbulent and not always advantageous; in this sense, already on another occasion, 64 Addressing Arnau Dessi, Guillem wrote that ‘sabent són per ami, vos darà molt volentes la lexensia de poderles traure he caregar que axí ma a promes así abans desta partida’: ASDCa. ACCCa. 296, Letter of 1486, January, 22. The export of animals was recorded by the Kingdom’s tax officials and took place upon the granting of a license. Although it regards the fourteenth century, see the frequency of this merchandise in the register of the customs house of Orosei. On customs duties: Zedda, Corrado. Santoro, Giovanna. Libre della Camerlengìa di Gallura. L’amministrazione di Orosei e della Gallura alla metà del Trecento attraverso la lettura del registro n. 2105 dell’Archivio della Corona d’Aragona di Barcellona. Cagliari: Trois, 1997. Sui diritti doganali: Amat di San Filippo, Pietro. Indagini e studi sulla storia economica della Sardegna. Torino: Stamperia Reale G. B. Paravia, 1902: 378–388 and, as regards horses, 397. 65 ASDCa. ACCCa. 296, Letter of 1482, August, 12. 66 ‘Aquí serrà hun jone que diu Miquel Sanxis, fil de Johan Sanxis, que es huna bona persona e ma molt pregat lo recomena aquí son fil que va ab la present nau: axí per vos sia endresat en totes coses que haquí aja mester; de dins dieu que han porta, que no vol, sino que por no eser stat may aquí sia per vos endresat’: ASDCa. ACCCa. 297, Letter of 1494, February, 21.

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there was an opportunity to deepen the relationship with the Dessì family, underscoring how times of great collaboration were followed by crises and difficulties prompted by misunderstandings in the management of conflicting interests and dealings67. Similar characteristics seem to mark the other relationships as well, such as the one with Nicolau Gessa, who in 1487 was replaced by Arnau Dessì over a thorny question connected with an unpaid debt68, and the already mentioned Carcassona affair.

4. Conclusion: the Navarros, Mediterranean merchants The field of action of the Navarros, then, consisted of the various markets in the Western Mediterranean placed under the Crown of Aragon. To carry out their commercial operations, without prejudice to the continuous journeys and movements that could also lead them to dwell and reside in these places, they relied on permanent networks of relationships which, on various levels and in various ways, made it possible to make up for the dearth of the solid infrastructures typical of the major international companies. The elements of this system of connections could function as facilitators, collectors, and distributors of goods, and their function could become the decisive factor for the success of any business dealing. Representatives of those dozens of merchants operating between Cagliari and Valencia in the second half of the fifteenth century, the Navarros were part of a profitable trading circuit based on the exporting of the island’s farm and food products (chiefly cheese and pasta) and the importing of articles and semi-processed goods that the Sardinian market demanded and absorbed. In this perspective, Guillem, Garcia, and Melchior contributed to the commercial fortunes of Valencia but, by stimulating Sardinian production and striking trading agreements with local operators, also added to the island’s commercial growth and, from perhaps not an exclusively economic standpoint, to the transformation of an island that, for a few decades, had joined the Iberian world for good. 67 Seche, Giuseppe. “Il carteggio mercantile…”: 205–208. 68 Garcia asked Arnau Dessì to take on the question in place of Gessa, asserting also that ‘mes confiansa tinx de vos que no de el’: ASDCa. ACCCa. 296, Letter of 1487, November 14.

Maria Giuseppina Meloni CNR – Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea

Society and identity in fifteenth-century Cagliari testaments

A study on late Medieval and modern Cagliari society must necessarily start with a fundamental moment in city history: the total repopulation of Castel di Cagliari after the Catalan-Aragonese conquest, with individuals originating from the terra firma kingdoms of the Crown of Aragon, and the transfer of the previous Pisan, Sardinian, and foreign inhabitants to the “appendici” of Stampace, Villanova, and Lapola – an event that marked the city’s particular ethnic and cultural features1. In recent years, Cagliari’s Sardinian/Catalan society has been the subject of studies that, by seeking to query the few available sources, have attempted to bridge a historiographic void at least in part, while making new contributions to knowledge of a composite reality marked by ethnic and social frontiers, by geographic mobility, and by social mobility. The studies focused above all on the elites in their various articulations: social groups, families, personalities, and they sought to outline the strategies of social ascent, relations with the monarchy and the municipal government, and the profile of culture and identity2. 1

2

On the repopulation of Cagliari after the Catalan-Aragonese conquest Conde y Delgado de Molina, Rafael. Aragó Cabañas, Antonio M. Castell de Càller. Cagliari Catalano aragonese, Cagliari: CNR-Istituto sui rapporti italo-iberici, 1984. On the late medieval town Urban, Maria Bonaria. Cagliari aragonese. Topografia e insediamento. Cagliari: CNR-Istituto sui rapporti italo-iberici, 2000; Petrucci, Sandro. Cagliari nel Trecento. Politica, istituzioni, economia e società. Dalla conquista aragonese alla fine della guerra tra Arborea e Aragona (1323–1365). PhD Dissertation, Università degli Studi di Sassari, a.a. 2005–2006, 28 December 2017 Among the most recent studies focusing on the problems relating to the study of late medieval society in Cagliari and taking stock of the historiography produced in recent years, see Oliva, Anna Maria. “Cagliari catalana nel Quattrocento. Socie­tà, memoria, identità”, Élites urbane e organizzazione sociale in area mediterranea tra tardo Medioevo e prima Età moderna Maria Giuseppina Meloni, ed. Cagliari:

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A source that, although little studied, given the dearth of Medieval documentary sources kept at the local archives, might offer a number of insights of interest for the study of Cagliari’s urban society in the late Middle Ages, and also in the context of research on civic identity, is that of testaments. As already pointed out, the testament is uno specchio che non riflette soltanto immagini della morte e pratiche funerarie, indirizzi spirituali e consuetudini devote, ma anche le fortune economiche, i legami di parentela, la biografia delle persone3.

and it has the virtue of approaching ‘chi lo legge a chi lo ha scritto (o dettato), arrivando quasi a cancellare le barriere dei secoli’4 more than other sources. As Bartoli Langeli stated, the testament per quanto condizionato, orientato, mediato, ti mette in contatto diretto con la persona, con quella donna e con quell’uomo, ti fa ascoltare la sua voce […] che è quanto di meglio uno storico possa desiderare5.

The protocols of the notaries who drew up deeds in Cagliari in the Middle Ages have been largely dispersed: the State Archive currently conserves the (incomplete) documentation of only those notaries who plied their

3

4 5

CNR-ISEM, 2011: 91–133; Oliva, Anna Maria. “Mobilità sociale, ceti cittadini e potere regio nella Cagliari catalana”, La mobilità sociale nel Medioevo italiano 1, Lorenzo Tanzini, Sergio Tognetti, eds. Roma: Viella, 2016: 153–180. Rigon, Antonio. “Orientamenti religiosi e pratica testamentaria a Padova nei secoli XII-XIV (prime ricerche)”, Nolens intestatus decedere. Il testamento come fonte della storia religiosa e sociale. Atti dell’incontro di studio (Perugia, 3 maggio 1983). Perugia: Giunta Regionale dell’Umbria, 1985: 41–63: 42 (‘a mirror that reflects not only images of death and funerary practices, spiritual orientations and devotional customs, but also economic fortunes, family ties, the biography of people’). There are many studies that examine the different aspects of the testamentary source at European level. For a review of the most significant bibliography, see the recent work of Rava, Eleonora, ‘Volens in testamento vivere’. Testamenti a Pisa, 1240–1320. Roma: Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, 2016. On the interest of this source for the study of social, religious and material culture, see also Sciascia, Laura, “Memorie di una lettrice di testamenti”. Mediterranea. Ricerche storiche, 19/40 (agosto 2017): 373–402. Sciascia, Laura, “Memorie di una lettrice…”: 374: [‘Who reads it to those who wrote (or dictated it), almost erasing the barriers of the centuries’]. Bartoli Langeli, Attilio. Parole introduttive a Margini di Libertà. Testamenti femminili nel Medioevo, a cura di Maria Clara Rossi. Atti del convegno di studi (Verona, 2008), Caselle di Sommacampagna: Cierre edizioni, 2010: 9–19 ([the testament], however conditioned, oriented, and mediated, puts you in direct contact with the person, with that woman and man, makes you listen to their voice […] this is the best a historian may wish’).

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trade between 1430 and 15086. It is a slim number of testaments in comparison with the great mass of documents collected in other cities, and regarding a rather limited time frame to make it possible to fully grasp what changed, what stayed the same, and the evolutionary processes in cultural, social, and religious aspects. However, the fifteenth-century testaments offer a cross-section, a photograph of Cagliari society about a century after the Catalan conquest, at a time when, upon the end of the long conflict between the Crown of Aragon and the Kingdom of Arborea, a slow integration process began and the city started to get its economic activities back in gear, attracting new inhabitants from the Crown’s mainland kingdoms. The testaments allow us to glimpse a social fabric in which various ethnic groups and a plurality of existences and cultures that began to mix despite the ethnic and spatial separation between Catalans (with this term also to be understood as Valencians, Aragonese, Majorcan) and Sardinians (Sardinian-Pisans, urbanized Sardinians from the villages) coexisted: the former residing in the Castello neighbourhood, the seat of political, economic, and religious power; the latter, along with the foreigners, residing in the “appendici” neighbourhoods of Stampace, Villanova, and Lapola. The testaments provide a partial picture of society, because they reflect only that part of it that had a minimum of assets to leave to heirs, and that, essentially for this reason, left testaments: merchants, shopkeepers, artisans, and their wives living in Castello and in the Appendici were for the most part the main figures in the testaments kept at the State Archive in Cagliari. The poorer strata of society do not appear, but neither do nobles and feudal lords, except in some cases for the rich merchant who invested a portion of his earnings in the purchase of fiefs. The part of Cagliari society represented, albeit to a small degree, by the testament source is at any rate the city’s most dynamic and vital. These brief notes present some reflections on the first data collected through the examination of fifteenth-century testament deeds, with the awareness that additional examination of these data is needed, and that research in the sixteenth-century notary holdings should be expanded to allow us to appreciate those things that changed and those that remained the same. 6

Schena, Olivetta. “Notai iberici a Cagliari nel XV secolo. Proposte per uno studio prosopografico”. La Corona catalanoaragonesa i el seu entorn mediterrani a la baixa edat mitjana, Maria Teresa Ferrer i Mallol, Josefina Mutgé i Vives, Manuel Sánchez Martínez, coord. Barcelona: CSIC, 2005: 395–412. More documentation is available for the following centuries.

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The testament source allows us to draw information of an economic and cultural nature on geographic and social mobility, on the extent to which an individual was rooted in the urban fabric, and on his relations with the place of origin. Though the self-definition of the testator, we can grasp the sense of belonging to an ethnic group, a community, and a social group. After a rather formulaic preamble centred in general on the inexorability of death and the uncertainty of the moment when it will come, the testator declared his personal information, followed almost always by his profession. A datum always present is the place of residence: Castello or the appendici of Stampace, Villanova, or Lapola, of which the individual generally declared himself “habitator.” The definition of ‘natural de Castell de Càller’ most likely implied long-time roots in the city; only in some cases did certain inhabitants of Castello, presumably belonging to the urban oligarchy and descending from Iberian conquerers, defined themselves as “civis” and “ciutadà”7. It would be useful to more deeply examine the significance and value of these terms, as well as to reflect on the provenance, times, and modes of transfer of men and women belonging to different social categories, who, in successive waves, reached Cagliari and put down roots there. Numerous testators, in addition to their residence at that time, noted their origin from other Crown territories, defining themselves as oriundus, natural, nadiu: of Barcelona, Granullers, Maiorca, Valencia, Daroca, Sant Joan Ses Fonts, Caldes de Montbuy. In these cases, it was likely an immigration rather recent in the city: in fact, during the second half of the fifteenth century, as civil war raged in Catalonia and the Kingdom of Sardinia was beginning to see a fair degree of economic recovery following the end of the hostilities between the Crown and the Giudicato of Arborea, the island was the destination of new migratory flows that reached the capital above all. The testator’s self-definition also shows some information on the presence of foreigners. The testament of Joan 7

Thus are defined, for example, the merchant and city councillor Martino Aymerich, Archivio di Stato di Cagliari (from now on ASCa), Pergamene laiche, n. 36; Caterina Genovès and her husband Giacomo Fogaçot, ASCa, Atti notarili, Tappa di Cagliari, Atti sciolti, notary Giovanni Carnicer, vol. 118, ff. 1–3r. On the construction of a specific identity of Cagliari’s urban oligarchy thanks to the granting by the Crown of a series of privileges, including that of citizenship, Martí Sentañes, Esther. “El poder urbano en clave identitaria. Notas sobre las oligarquías catalano-aragonesas a través del Llibre Verd de Cagliari”, Sardegna e Catalogna officinae di identità. Riflessioni storiografiche e prospettive di ricerca. Studi in memoria di Roberto Coroneo, Alessandra Cioppi, ed. Cagliari: CNR-ISEM, 2013: 387–431.

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de Julià, an artisan residing in the appendice of Lapola but “natural” of Syracuse, shows the presence in the seaman’s quarter of a community of Sicilians to which the testator was linked by economic ties and the bonds of solidarity: although rooted in the city, he did not fail to note, in his last will, the relatives residing in Syracuse8. Various elements contained in the testament may indicate the degree to which an individual was rooted in the urban fabric: family formation, social relationships, the performance of an economic activity. The request for a burial place is also significant in this sense. The choice of a church and of any tomb, at the discretion of the testamentary executors, or of one’s own tomb, where other family members had not been buried earlier, prompts one to think of people seized by death when in the city only temporarily, or of recent immigrants, while requests for burials in a tomb where parents, brothers, and sisters already lay connote generations of settlement. Often the testators’ dispositions show they had maintained relations with their country of origin: relatives remaining overseas were mentioned in the inheritance, albeit only in the case where wives and children, where pre­ sent, had been unable to claim it. Economic and commercial relationships were frequent: some declared they were in business with persons residing on the Iberian peninsula, such as the merchant Nicolau Gras, an inhabitant of Castello di Cagliari, who owned a vessel along with his brother Antoni, a Valencian merchant, or like the widow of Ferran Cota, residing in the Villanova quarter, in business with her nephew in Valencia, a city where her fifteen-year-old son, likely to be guided into mercantile activity, also lived9. Awareness of origins can also be seen in the inhabitants of the urbanized appendici, who came from small villas in the district or from the island’s interior – a phenomenon that was to intensify in the second half of the fifteenth century10. This is the case, for example, of the cimator pannorum 8 9

10

ASCa, Atti notarili, Tappa di Cagliari, Atti sciolti, notary Giovanni Carnicer, vol. 218, ff. 3v-4r. ASCa, Atti notarili, Tappa di Cagliari, atti sciolti, notary Andrea Barbens, prot. 6, ff. 4r-5r; notary Giovanni Carnicer, vol. 118, ff. 15r-17r. On commercial relations between Sardinia and Valencia, Igual Luis, David. “Comercio y operadores económi­ cos entre Valencia y Cerdeña durante el reinado de los Reyes Católicos”, Sardegna, Spagna e Mediterraneo dai Re Cattolici al Secolo d’Oro, Bruno Anatra, Giovanni Murgia, eds. Roma: Carocci: 2004: 33–56. On demographic growth in the Appendici starting from the second half of the fifteenth century Anatra, Bruno. “Cagliari e il suo territorio”, La società sarda in età spagnola, Francesco Manconi, ed. Cagliari: Consiglio regionale della Sardegna, 2003: I, 48–55.

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Antonio Spa, an inhabitant of Stampace but originally from Quartu, an agricultural centre not far from the city, who asked to be buried in his native town ‘in vaso progenie nostra’, and who did not neglect, in his religious legacies, to bestow favour on Quartu’s church of Sant’Elena11. The wealthy merchant Masedo Meli, active in the grain and pasta trade with Barcelona and Valencia, although a resident of the Villanova neighbourhood, came from the village of Laconi: in this centre, and in other villas from the island’s interior, he had a solid network of relatives and collaborators. His 1441 testament remembered these persons and left a sum of money for the restoration of a chapel built by his father in Laconi’s church. With this gesture, the merchant most likely intended to perpetuate the memory of his father and of his family, and to keep the bonds with his native town alive. The testament of Masedo Meli yields a number of interesting insights: the man is one of the time’s rare documented examples of Sardinian merchants who attained a good economic position through the trade in local products. From his final will it emerges that he was in business with other merchants, used the instrument of the commandry, and all the movements related to his activities were scrupulously noted in the ‘libri de societate’, a type of source that unfortunately practically disappeared from the Sardinian archives12. The will also shows the active role of his wife and mother-in-law in Meli’s dealings and the commercial activities, and makes one reflect on having to more deeply examine women’s condition in fifteenthcentury Cagliari, a theme to which the study of testaments, one of the few occasions women had for their voices to be heard13, might make a contribution14. Although women’s testaments do not feature in great numbers

11 12

13 14

On the opportunity of deepening the phenomenon of social mobility from rural areas to urban centers Oliva, Anna Maria, “Mobilità sociale…”:153–180. ASCa, Atti notarili, Tappa di Cagliari, Atti sciolti, notary Pietro Durante, prot. 2, ff. 109r-110v. An important exception in this field has been studied by Seche, Giuseppe. “Il carteggio mercantile Dessì-Navarro: una fonte per le relazioni commerciali tra Valenza e la Sardegna nella seconda metà del Quattrocento”, Commercio, finanza e guerra nella Sardegna tardomedievale, Olivetta Schena, Sergio Tognetti, eds. Roma: Viella, 2017: 197–233. See also Soldani, Maria Elisa. I mercanti catalani e la Corona d’Aragona in Sardegna. Profitti e potere negli anni della conquista, Roma: Viella, 2017. Sciascia, Laura, “Memorie di una lettrice…”: 373. On this issue, see Olla Repetto, Gabriella, “La donna cagliaritana tra ‘400 e ‘600”, Medioevo. Saggi e rassegne, 11 (1986): 171–207, who largely uses testaments. On female wills Margini di libertà…

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in fifteenth-century Cagliari’s notary deeds, some provide a portrait of women with strong personalities, fully participating in society. The social and economic role of Sardinians in Catalan Cagliari also lacks appropriate examination: the testamentary source shows certain figures of Sardinian merchants residing in the appendici, who managed to attain wealth through the trade in cereals, cheese, leather, and other local products. In addition to the aforementioned Masedo Meli, the Stampace residents Gantini Vacarella, Taddeo de Quart, and, above all, Giuliano Scamado, through their final wills kept in the primus liber testamentorum of the notary Giovanni Garau15, had considerable estates that included real property, slaves, and precious objects. The datum of the residence (Castello or appendici) which, as mentioned, was always stated by the testators, confirms what has already been pointed out in the latest studies16: during the fifteenth century, the ethnic and spatial division between Sardinians, residents in the appendici, and Catalans living in Castello, was not clear as had been believed for a long time, and despite the royal regulation that established precise boundaries, the barriers were not rigid, and permitted frequent exchanges and contacts. Therefore, an osmosis of cultures, and a mixture of modes of existence, were frequent. In fact, there were various testators of Catalan origin: artisans, tradesmen, professionals, residing in the appendici and above all in the fishing village of Lapola. These included the cirurgicus Rafael Aguilar, who in his 1431 testament, declared he was originally from Barcelona but resided in Lapola, where he practised as physician at the service the neighbourhood’s inhabitant’s and of passing seafarers. The request for burial in the church of Santa Eulalia or in that of Nostra Signora di Bonaria, places of worship that were clearly Catalan in their significance, like the close relations maintained with his brother and sister residing in Barcelona, show the persistence of his emotional and cultural ties with his mother country. However, in leaving his Sardinian maidservant – who had borne him a daughter, also mentioned in the testament – as the only heir to his

15 ASCa, Atti notarili, Tappa di Cagliari, Atti sciolti, notary Giovanni Garau, prot. 3 Primus Liber testamentorum. Unfortunately, it is the only protocol of this notary exclusively dedicated to wills. 16 Oliva, Anna Maria, “Cagliari catalana…”: 120.

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assets, he also showed his insertion in the new social situation where he had chosen to settle17. In this figure’s affairs, one glimpses that process of assimilation and of setting down roots that, as time went by, led both Catalans and Sardinians to see themselves as “Sardinian/Catalan,” in spite of the persistence, until the sixteenth century, of juridical regulations that continued to privilege a restricted oligarchy of Catalan origin, and to exclude Sardinians from the city’s government18. In more general terms, this slow integration process marked the identity of Sardinians and, as the author Sergio Atzeni maintained, consisted essentially of continuous assimilation of invaders being transformed into natives19. This osmosis between ethnicities and cultures was easier and more frequent between the middle/lower classes of the Appendici, where the blend between Sardinians and foreigners was older; more difficult was the coexistence between Sardinians and the economic and political elite, descending from Iberian conquerors and perched in Castello, which aimed to protect its dominant position and to perpetuate its privileges. However, although rare, cases are also documented of blending between Sardinians and Catalans at high levels of society: an emblematic case is that of the Stampace merchant Giuliano Scamado, whose testament reveals the social rise achieved during the exercise of commerce and, presumably, thanks to friendships and backing in institutional settings, and the important economic position he attained, which was to earn him permission to reside in Castello, enabled his marriage to the Catalan Violante Sanjust, and allowed him to climb higher up the social ladder through his children20.

17

ASCa, Atti notarili, Tappa di Cagliari, Atti sciolti, notary Pietro Baster, vol. 45, ff. 14r14v., edited by Olla Repetto, Gabriella. “Notai sardi del secolo XV: Pietro Baster”, Studi storici e giuridici in onore di Antonio Era, Padova: Cedam, 1963: 286–289. 18 Martí Sentañes, Esther, “El poder urbano…,”; Guia Marín, Lluis, “La construcción de un espacio político: Cagliari y sus apéndices”, Mediterraneo e città. Discipline a confronto, Lluis Guia Marín, Maria Grazia Mele and Giovanni Serreli, eds. Milano: Franco Angeli, 2017: 31–48. 19 Clemente, Pietro. “Appunti ironici sull’identità”, Sardegna, seminario sull’identità, Giulio Angioni, Francesco Bachis et al., eds. Cagliari: Cuec, 2007: 217–223: 221, where is quoted the concept expressed by Sergio Atzeni in the novel Passavamo sulla terra leggeri. 20 ASCa, Atti notarili, Tappa di Cagliari, Atti sciolti, notary Giovanni Garau, prot. 3, ff. 25v-29r.

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By reading a testament we can grasp the testator’s sense of belonging to social groups and communities in which individuals saw and defined themselves in relation to the rest of society. These are more than anything else suggestions that the testamentary source offers and that, given the scanty nature of the available documentation, should be verified and examined in greater depth through cross-analysis with other sources. For example, there was a strong sense of belonging to the neighbourhood of residence. In the inhabitants of the appendici, one notes a strong attachment to ones own urban microcosm that leads them to weave business relationships with inhabitants of the same neighbourhood, also chosen as testamentary executors or witnesses. The wealthier testators did not forget gestures of solidarity to the poor in their community, for young orphan girls to be married off, or for the institutions that the neighbourhood tasked with fundraising to ransom prisoners of Barbary pirates21. As regards the place chosen for burial, the tendency appears to be that of being buried in a church in their own neighbourhood, but given the attraction exerted by the great church of the friars minor conventual of St. Francis of Stampace, many inhabitants of Castello and of the appendici of Villanova and Lapola chose that place of worship as their final dwelling. The inhabitants of Stampace, on the other hand, were always buried in their neighbourhood, not only in the Franciscan church but also in the parish church of Sant’Anna, or in the church of the Santa Chiara monastery. The testamentary dispositions show the sense of belonging to a family, which was expressed through the request for burial in the same church and in the same tomb where their ancestors, parents, brothers, or predeceasing children had already been buried. In the higher social classes, the will to pass on and exalt the family memory, along with the desire to show the prestige that had been attained, often took concrete shape in the construction of a family crypt inside a church or in the attached cemetery. The sources bear witness to the existence in the city – for example in the cathedral cemetery or in the church of St. Francis of Stampace – of family chapels, where the family coat of arms dominated, the rights were celebrated in requiem for ancestors, and the cleric tasked with these celebrations

21 ASCa, Atti notarili, Tappa di Cagliari, Atti sciolti, notary Giovanni Garau, prot. 3, ff. 1r-4r (Testament of the merchant Masedo Meli of Villanova); ff. 11v-15r (Testament of the merchant Taddeo de Quart of Stampace).

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belonged to the same family22. As Anna Maria Oliva noted in a recent work, ‘la società cagliaritana non si è raccontata in modo significativo né come comunità né come memorie di famiglia’. It has not told itself, at least in accordance with the traditional schemes, through chronicles or annals, even if this ‘non significa che non vi fossero tradizioni e memorie collettive e familiari dalla chiara valenza identitaria’23 – traditions and memories important to grasp through the available sources. One social group in which various testators recognized themselves was the confraternity. Entry into a brotherhood could respond to the need, particularly felt by those who had recently moved to the city, to join a new, artificial family to compensate the dismembering of the natural families that the move to the island must have brought about in many cases. Belonging to a confraternity involved sharing and accepting values and common rules, and ensured its members’ solidarity and spiritual and material assistance. In their last wills, affiliates did not neglect their confraternities, whose entire membership would accompany the remains to burial and guaranteed prayers for the soul of the deceased. The data present in the testamentary deeds, while meagre, are precious because they are among the first to attest to the presence of the confraternity phenomenon in the fifteenth century24. The process of integrating and overlapping cultures underway in fifteenth-century Cagliari society may be grasped through the religious part of the testament, on funeral rites and religious legacies25. 22 Meloni, Maria Giuseppina. “Salvezza dell’anima e prestigio sociale. La fondazione di benefici e cappelle nella Cagliari del Quattrocento”, Élites urbane e organizzazione sociale in area mediterranea fra tardo Medioevo e prima Età Moderna, Maria Giuseppina Meloni, ed. Cagliari: CNR-ISEM, 2013: 239–272. 23 Oliva, Anna Maria, “Cagliari catalana…”: 124–125 [‘Cagliari’s society has not been meaningfully narrated either as a community nor as a family memories’ – ‘It does not mean that there were no collective and family traditions and memories with a clear identity value’]. 24 A recently discovered document, however, attests that the phenomenon was already present in Cagliari in the fourteenth century, Forci, Antonio. Meloni, Maria Giuseppina. “‘A honor de Nostre Senyor Deus Jhesu Christ e de Madona Santa Maria’. Lo statuto inedito di una confraternita religiosa nella Cagliari del ‘300”, RiMe. Rivista dell’Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea, 10 (giugno 2013): 5–56, with bibliographical references on the theme. 25 On this topic Meloni, Maria Giuseppina. “Pratiche devozionali e pietà popolare nei te­sta­menti cagliaritani del Quattrocento”, El món urbá a la Corona d’Aragó del

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If, on the one hand, the assimilation by the Sardinians of Appendici, of Catalan rites and devotions appears evident, on the other one may note the simultaneous presence, in these spaces where the mixture between Sardinians, Catalans, and foreigners was most marked, of native practices and rituals that had not been erased by the dominant culture. Virtually all the testators, from Castello and from the Appendici, for example, requested the celebration of a post mortem ritual, the trentenari de san Amador, a series of 33 masses celebrated for 33 consecutive days after death, accompanied by a ritual number of candles. This custom, highly widespread in Catalonia, Majorca, and to a certain extent throughout the Iberian Peninsula, appears to have become, in the mid-fifteenth century, common heritage for all the city’s inhabitants. However, signifying Cagliari’s late-Medieval plural identity is the survival of Sardinian tradition, which emerges, for example, from the disposals of a Stampace woman who, as testator, asked for the celebration of certain masses ‘iuxta modum sardiscum’26. The testaments also show the affirmation of new modes of devotion: a rich Sardinian merchant from Stampace left a sum of money to the Catalan shrine of Montserrat, which we imagine he visited during one of his business trips to the Iberian Peninsula27. Almost all the testators, in their wills, recalled a local shrine, that of Our Lady of Bonaria, a cult dedicated to Mary’s protection from the dangers of the sea, born in Catalan Cagliari. Promoted by the Crown and by the mobility of the new inhabitants, it was soon appropriated by Catalans, Sardinians, and foreigners28. But we also know that the spread of the new devotions did not obscure the most deeply-rooted local cults, such as the worship of Sardinian martyrs, which remained alive throughout the centuries of the Middle Ages and came down without interruption to the contemporary period29.

26 27 28 29

1137 als decrets de Nova Planta, XVII Congrés d’Història de la Corona d’Aragó (Barcelona-Lleida, 2000), Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, 2003, II: 229–249. ASCa, Atti notarili, Tappa di Cagliari, Atti sciolti, notary Pietro Baster, vol. 45, f. 22, edited in Olla Repetto, Gabriella, “Notai sardi …”: 292–293. ASCa, Atti notarili, Tappa di Cagliari, Atti sciolti, notary Giovanni Garau, prot. 3, ff. 11v-15r., testament of Taddeo de Quart. Meloni, Maria Giuseppina, Il santuario della Madonna di Bonaria. Origini e diffusione di un culto. Roma: Viella, 2011. Coroneo, Roberto, “Il culto dei martiri locali Saturnino, Antioco e Gavino nella Sardegna giudicale”, Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome. Moyen Âge, 118–1 (2006): 5–16.

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Also demonstrating the persistence of local traditions in the appendici is an onomastic datum found in two different testaments: the use, for women, of the name Sardigna, or Sardinia, attested on the island in the Giudicati age (twelfth-thirteenth centuries)30. Citation in the wills of a series of everyday objects – apparel, linens, furnishings, cooking utensils, fabrics, silver – takes on interest, given the dearth of sources kept at Cagliari archives, for a study of the various aspects of daily life and of material culture31. Some of the objects cited by testators in the appendici were produced by local tradition and continued to be manufactured and used despite the massive spread of objects and fashions originating from the Iberian Peninsula. These objects include a silver cup defined as “sardescha” – we do not know what type of cup it is – and a vànova also defined as “sardescha”, a bed covering, most likely loom-woven, and not very different from those that some Sardinian towns weave to this day, decorated with designs whose origins are lost in the mists of time32. It may then be said that a reading of testaments offers multiple insights for the study of culture and identity in late-Medieval Cagliari society. This source confirms that the Appendici were the place of integration between Sardinians and Catalans, the destination of new migratory flows starting from the mid-fifteenth century, both from the Iberian Peninsula and from the island’s hinterland; and the place where contacts most often took place between the various components of Cagliari society, giving rise to the unique Sardinian-Catalan culture33. An emblem atic example of this blend of cultures, represented through the use of everyday objects, is found in the legacy of Stampace presbyter who, in his 1444 testament, left some relatives a‘taciam argenti sardischam’, a ‘caxa pisanescha’ and a ‘cofre de Valencia’34.

30 ASCa, Atti notarili, Tappa di Cagliari, Atti sciolti, notary Pietro Baster, n. 45, ff. 10r-11r., edited in Olla Repetto, Gabriella, “Notai sardi …”, p. 284; notary Giovanni Garau, prot. 3, ff. 10r-11r. 31 Rava, Eleonora. ‘Volens in testamento vivere…’: 287–302; Sciascia, Laura, “Memorie di una lettrice…”: 387–391. 32 ASCa, Atti notarili, Tappa di Cagliari, Atti sciolti, notary Pietro Baster, ff. 10r.-115r., edited in Olla Repetto, Gabriella. “Notai sardi …” : 283; notary Giovanni Garau, prot. 3, ff. 5v-6r. 33 On the relevance of Appendici in this process Guia Marín, Lluís. “La construcción de un espacio político…”. 34 ASCa, Atti notarili, Tappa di Cagliari, Atti sciolti, notary Giovanni Garau, prot. 3, ff. 5v-6r. (testamento of the presbyter Gantinus Barray).

Giovanni Sini CNR- Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea

Reflections on the socio-political and cultural transmissions at the end of the Giudicato of Arborea. Identity-based resistance and (re)construction of historic memory?

1. Dynastic and political-institutional changes On this occasion, attention is focused on a period of crisis and socio-cultural as well as political and institutional renewal: the time span straddling the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This is the period when, on the political and institutional level, numerous changes took place that were to profoundly alter the Mediterranean landscape. Reference is made in particular to the situations created in the first decade of the fifteenth century within the Crown of Aragon and the Giudicato of Arborea. The following is a list of the events deemed of greatest importance: – – – – – – – – – – – –

1407: death of Marianus V of Arborea 1408: new iudex William II of Narbonne 1408: donation of Maria of Arborea 1409: battle of Sanluri 1409: Leonardo Cubello, vicar 1410: Marquisate of Oristano 1410: death of Martin the Elder 1412: Compromise of Caspe and the house of Trastámara 1416: Catalan Parliament 1421: Sardinian Parliament 1421: Carta de Logu 1422–1425: conclusion of the trial of the Arborea heirs

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The Giudicato dynasty was interrupted without direct heirs in 1407 with the assassination of Marianus V1. Within the Giudicato, but not only, a crucial political and dynastic question arose: who was to be trusted with leading it? Other problems that it is supposed might be a topic of discussion regard the future of the Giudicato, its form, and its very existence and division. According to the lines of succession of the house of Arborea, the future iudex, with great likelihood, should have been chosen from among three descendents: William II of Narbonne, Leonardo Cubello, or William Hugh of Rocabertì2. Each might apparently possess valid dynastic requirements. However, the choice had to fall on one and only one of the claimants. The preference had to be in line with the rules of succession in use in the Giudicato of Arborea, and therefore respecting the tradition and the identity-based memory of the Giudicato. However, the direction of the choice of a new iudex, in a period of profound social 1

2

Genealogie medievali di Sardegna. Brook, L Leonard, Casula, Francesco Cesare, Costa, Maria Mercè et al., eds. Cagliari: Due D editrice mediterranea, 1983: 61; Casula, Francesco Cesare. La Sardegna aragonese. Sassari: Chiarella, II, 1990; Gallinari, Luciano. “Nuovi dati su Mariano V sovrano di Arborea”, Medioevo. Saggi e rassegne, 21 (1996): 127–146; Gallinari, Luciano. “Nuevas hipótesis sobre la relación familiar entre Brancaleone Doria y el futuro juez de Arborea Mariano V en las fuentes de finales del siglo XIV”, RiMe. Rivista dell’Istiututo di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea, 11/1 (2013): 191–232; Gallinari, Luciano. Una dinastia in guerra e un re descurat? I giudici d’Arborea e Giovanni I re d’Aragona (1379–1396). Cagliari: CNR-ISEM, 2013: 119–121, 124–125. In the current state of the studies, it would appear that the lines of succession that can be followed may be attributable to two people within the fourteenth-century Giudicato dynasty, and to two stories with considerably different consequences: the one proceeding from the giudice Hugh II, William Hugh of Rocabertì and Leonardo Cubello, and the one deriving from the giudice Marianus IV, William II of Narbonne, and his testamentary will. See Oliva, Anna Maria. “La successione dinastica femminile nei troni giudicali sardi”, Miscellanea di studi medioevali sardo-catalani, Patrizia Mameli, Luigi Offreddu, Annamaria Oliva et al., eds. Cagliari: Edizioni Della Torre, 1981: 9–43; Genealogie medievali…: 61, tavv. XXXIII/23, XXXVII/26; Costa, Maria Mercè. “Una possibile ‘giudicessa’ d’Arborea”, Medioevo. Saggi e rassegne, 10 (1985): 41–50; Cadeddu, Maria Eugenia. “Vicende di Brancaleone Doria negli anni 1383–1384”, Medioevo. Saggi e rassegne, 18 (1993): 27–52; Gallinari, Luciano. “Guglielmo III di Narbona, ultimo sovrano di Arborea e la guerra dei Cent’Anni”, Medioevo. Saggi e rassegne, 18 (1993): 91–121; Scarpa Senes, Mirella “Una lunga controversia feudale. Gli aspetti giuridici dell’istituzione del Marchesato di Oristano”, Sardegna, Mediterraneo e Atlantico tra Medioevo ed Età Moderna. Studi storici in memoria di Alberto Boscolo. La Sardegna, Luisa D’Arienzo, ed. Roma: Bulzoni, 1993: I, 347–374.

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and political as well as institutional renewal, is thought to have taken into consideration, on the one hand, the political weight and the influences on the contemporary European landscape that the candidate could have, and on the other the demands and pressures that the political and institutional powers gravitating around the Giudicato could express and exert upon the decision for one candidate or another. These pressures might have also included those regarding the institutional and legal authorization for the Catalan-Aragonese succession. In fact, the feudal relationship initiated between the Crown and Hugh II clashed with the policy carried out by Marianus IV. He is defined by various contemporary Catalan sources as a vassal and felon – the betrayer of a feudal agreement3. Indeed, about a year passed between death and election – the new iudex was appointed in August 1408 – during which time it is supposed there were various consultations and pressures in order to support the position of each candidate4. 3

4

In 1323, Hugh II ratified the act of vassalage to the infante Alfonso, son of James II. This judgment on Marianus IV is found in various records of the Corts meeting for Principality of Catalonia during the fourteenth century, in the papers of the Procesos also in the mid-fourteenth century, and also in the lawsuit brought by the Rocabertì branch against Maria of Arborea, daughter of Hugh II. Cortes de Cataluña I secunda parte, (Comprende desde el año 1331 al 1358). Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 1896: I, 474–481; Cortes de Cataluña II, (Comprende desde el año 1359 al 1367). II, Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 1899: 448–455; Cortes de Cataluña III, (Comprende desde el año 1368 al 1375). III, Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 1900; Cortes de Cataluña XII, (Comprende el Parlamento de Barcelona del 1416 y las Cortes de Cucufate y Tortosa de 1419–1420. Suplementos á Cortes ya publicadas y Adiciones de Cortes y Parlamentos de los siglos XIII y XIV). Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 1908: XII, 395–309, 443–453; Tola, Pasquale. Codice Diplomatico della Sardegna. Sassari: Carlo Delfino, 1984: I, doc. XXI, 668–671; Costa, Maria Mercè. “Una possibile ‘giudicessa’ d’Arborea”: 41–50; Scarpa Senes, Mirella “Una lunga controversia feudale”: 347–374; Gallinari, Luciano. Una dinastia in guerra e un re descurat?: 76–77 passim; Sini, Giovanni. “Presence and persistence of Catalan cultural patterns in the Kingdom of Sardinia through an interdisciplinary psychosocial study of the Corts”, in Memory in the Middle Ages. Flocel Sabaté, ed., in press. It would be highly useful to investigate this period through careful analysis of the entire document output produced at the time by the institutional organs of the Crown of Aragon, the Apostolic See, and Genoa. It would also be useful to proceed with systemic archival investigations for some families with interests on the island: for example, the Narbonne and the Rocabertì families. This is by all means an enormous task, but one that may be of use for casting light on a more detailed picture of the dynamics of the forces at play, of the divisions within the Giudicato, of the major figures, and of the Aragonese preferences, with the reasons therefor.

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As is known, the designated iudex was William II of Narbonne. After the battle of Sanluri, he left the island in search of economic and military aid. The leadership of the Giudicato starting from July 1409 was entrusted to Leonardo Cubello as vicar. He appears to have already been podestà of Oristano during this period. Moreover, he served as vicar from the moment of the death of the iudex Marianus V until the election and subsequent “coronation” in January 1409 of William II of Narbonne5. Most likely, the times for Cubello to rise to power were not yet ripe in 1407/1408. In March 1410, the Capitolazione di San Martino was signed, which put an end – not de jure – to the Giudicato of Arborea and to the title of iudex and sanctioned the creation of that time of the Marquisate of Oristano, granted to Leonardo Cubello and his heirs6. In this way, the Crown declared itself in favour of supporting the alliance led by Cubello, but with some conditions. The reasons for this choice may be glimpsed in the actions of Cubello, especially after the battle of Sanluri, where it may be seen that he was informing the Catalan-Aragonese. The conquest of Oristano in 1410 would itself appear to have taken place in a nearly peaceful manner7. It may be thought that Cubello, and the portion of the Giudicato’s 5

6 7

Costa, Maria Mercè. “Una possibile ‘giudicessa’ d’Arborea”: 43; Gallinari, Luciano. “Guglielmo III di Narbona”: 91–121; Scarpa Senes, Mirella “Una lunga controversia feudale”: 351, 354, 362; Casula, Francesco Cesare. Dizionario Storico Sardo. Sassari: Carlo Delfino editore, 2001, to the entries Cubello, Leonardo, Palmas, fra’ Elia e San Martino, Capitolazione di. The figure of the podestà in Sardinia derives from the influences of the municipal institutional experiences of Pisa and Genoa started in the twelfth century. See Pinna, Michele. “Gli antichi podestà nei comuni di Sardegna”, Archivio Storico Sardo, XVI (1926): 260–288; Boscolo, Alberto. “La politica italiana di Ferdinando I d’Aragona”, Studi Sardi, 12–13 (II) (1952–1954): 101–145; Volpe, Gioacchino. Studi sulle istituzioni comunali a Pisa. Città e contado, consoli e podestà. Secoli XII–XIII. Firenze: Sansoni, 1970; Gli statuti sassaresi. Economia, società, istituzioni a Sassari nel Medioevo e nell’Età Moderna, Atti del Convegno di studi, Sassari, 12–14 maggio 1983. Antonello Mattone, Marco Tangheroni, eds. Cagliari: Edes, 1986; Carta Raspi, Raimondo. Breve storia di Sardegna. Cagliari: Il Nuraghe, 1950: 687; Caldarella, Antonino. “L’impresa di Martino I, re di Sicilia in Sardegna (a. 1408–1409)”, Atti dell’Accademia di Scienze Lettere e Arti di Palermo, serie IV, vol. 14 (fasc. 1) (1954): 15–64; Boscolo, Alberto. La politica italiana di Martino il Vecchio re d’Aragona. Padova: CEDAM, 1962: 101–145; Tola, Pasquale. Codice Diplomatico: II, doc. V, 34–38 and relative footnotes. Tola, Pasquale. Codice Diplomatico: II, doc. 5, 34–38. ACA, Cancilleria, Cartas reales, Martin I, doc. 174. For the consulted documentation, see: § Unpublished sources; Carta Raspi, Raimondo. Breve storia di Sardegna: 687; Artizzu, Francesco. “Registri e carte reali di Ferdinando I d’Aragona”, Archivio

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maiorales he led and represented, sought an agreement with the Aragonese.

2. Maria of Arborea An element useful for providing an idea of the climate that had been created upon the death of Marianus V is the documentation produced by Maria of Arborea, daughter of the iudex Hugh II, and submitted to the Catalan-Aragonese sovereign. Maria claimed the Giudicato and the title of iudex for her son William Hugh of Rocabertì, as he was a direct descendent in the proper and not rebellious genealogical line of succession, such as the one proceeding from Marianus IV8. On 20 November 1408, Maria donated to her son William Hugh of Rocabertì the Giudicato and all the rights to it. She underscored that ‘hereditas ad nos tanquam proximiorem in gradu et linea descendenti eisdem dominis parentibus nostris pleno iure et non ad alium pertinent et spectant’. The second document in chronological order is dated 1413 and regards the summons that Maria submitted to the sovereign with regard to the succession of the Giudicato’s territories, defining Cubello as a person who ‘injustament e contra Deu e justicia s.es intrus en lo dit jutgat’. It is unclear to what Maria was exactly referring with injustament intrus. It

8

Storico Sardo, Padova, CEDAM, 25, fasc. 1–2 (1957): 261–318; Putzulu, Evandro. “’Cartulari de Arborea’. Raccolta di documenti diplomatici inediti sulle relazioni tra il Giudicato di Arborea e i Re d’Aragona (1328–1430)”, Archivio Storico Sardo. Padova: CEDAM, 25, fasc. 1–2 (1957): 71–170; D’arienzo, Luisa. Documenti sui visconti di Narbona e la Sardegna. Padova: CEDAM, I, 1977. Most of the documentation to which reference is made is collected in a dossier entitled Acta Iudicatus Arboree alias marchionatus Oristanni, kept at AGS, Colecciones, PR, leg. 13, doc. 116 and dated 1519, reporting copies of acts related to the jurisdiction of succession of the Giudicato. The same documentation is kept in the same archive in another archive position; in this case the records are numbered. This copy, along with the documentation produced by the son William Hugh in 1415, and kept in Barcelona at the ACA Archive, is analyzed in in Scarpa Senes, Mirella “Una lunga controversia feudale”: 347–374. For the lawsuit brought by Maria in 1413: Costa, Maria Mercè. “Una possibile ‘giudicessa’ d’Arborea”: 41–50.

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might regard the fact that Cubello, perhaps, was not a Bas-Serra, which is to say he lacked sufficient titles of succession, or that as vicar of the iudex, he had decided over the destinies of the patrimony of the Giudicato of Arborea. However, it is to be borne in mind that this statement originated from a rival of Cubello who brought a lawsuit against him. Moreover, Maria stated that she had been late to learn of the Capitolazione and of the creation of the Marquisate, after the death of Martin the Elder. In November 1415, William Hugh of Rocabertì addressed a supplication for the Aragonese sovereign to take into consideration the applications submitted years before by his deceased mother Maria of Arborea. Ferdinand submitted the question to the Royal Council, and in January 1416 assigned a judge to the proceeding. The document dated 1425 deals with the conclusion of the suit brought by William Hugh of Rocabertì for the inheritance of the Giudicato against Leonardo Cubello. The case ended with a decision in favour of Rocabertì. However, as is known, it was never enforced. The dossier Acta Iudicatus Arboree alias marchionatus Oristanni includes other documents dealing with the question from the legal and juridical standpoints. At the moment, it is interesting to point out that in 1448, the son of the deceased William Hugh, Dalmazio, submitted a supplication for the sovereign to enforce the decision from twenty-five years earlier. The sovereign responded by telling Rocabertì to be patient. The reaction times related to this succession case are highlighted. The temporal proximity of the events – late 1407, August and November 1408 – leads us to reflect upon the fact that Maria’s donation was most likely made in response to the Giudicato’s recent succession decisions. The content of the documentation produced in 1413, and then in 1415, would lead to believe that the island’s events developed in accordance with a framework unforeseen by Maria. The suit began in 1422. It is to be borne in mind that in 1421, the Sardinian Parliament was held and, on that occasion, the sale of the rights to the Giudicato was made official. Lastly, in 1448, there was the supplication to enforce the decision. It is stressed that in 1446, there is the first documented citation of the toponymic Arborea for the Cubello family9.

9

I parlamenti di Alfonso il Magnanimo (1421–1452), aggiornamenti, Alberto Boscolo, eds. Apparati e note a cura di Olivetta Schena, volume III, Acta Curiarum Regni Sardiniae. Cagliari: Consiglio Regionale della Sardegna, 1993.

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It is interesting to note how Maria could consider the Giudicato’s dynastic relationship at the start of the fifteenth century. She turned to the Aragonese sovereign to make her donation known and to bring suit. From the known documentation, she appears to have had no contact with  the island’s actual situation, and made no request to the interested parties: the Giudicato peoples, William II of Narbonne, or Cubello. In turning to the Catalan-Aragonese institutions, she acted as a subject of the Crown, in effect, by following the feudal agreement of 1323. The documents she produced give the impression of her extraneousness to the contemporary island world, and especially that of the Giudicato. During the first ten years of the fifteenth century, she had been living in Catalonia for decades. Probably, not having lived the events of the final phase of the Giudicato in person, some dynamics escaped her and, as she wrote in 1413, the news of certain events was quite slow to reach her. The last Bas-Serra was of the Giudicato by birth, of course, but culturally had to be Catalan. The two sons, Gerard Galceran and William Hugh, took part in the parliaments of the Principality of Catalonia of 1410 and 1416, and stood beside Martin the Younger in his Sicilian enterprise, and beside Alfonso the Magnanimous in the Sardinian one10.

3. Cubello family, the beginning. Some considerations According to historiography, Leonardo Cubello belonged to a secondary branch of the Arborea. What is documented about his person is little and late (the first direct information dates to 140811) and much information on his origins are of not certainly reliable provenance. It is not known with certainty whether his father was truly Salvatore of Bas-Serra. It is certain, at least from the documents known thus far, that after his name he never used (and no use of it was ever made with reference to him) 10 The husband was William Galceran of Rocabertì, brother of Timbora, wife of Marianus IV of Arborea: Cortes de Cataluña XII; Bassegoda Pineda, Enric, Vida i obra de Fra Bernat Hug de Rocabertí. Universitat de Girona: Tesi doctoral, 2001: 40–46. 9 November 2017 ; 9 November 2017 . 11 With the title of capita et vicarii general in ACA, Cancillería, Martín I, Ap. 174br.

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the surname Bas-Serra or the toponymic Arborea. Instead, he used – and use was made of – the surname of Iberian origin, Cubello, of his mother Costanza Cubello Deiana. In the analyzed sources, the name that appears is Leonardo Marquis of Oristano, or more simply the Marquis of Oristano. Even before 1410, the surname Cubello does not appear; he is identified by his first name and for his political and institutional office. He is cited as Leonardo Cubello, Cubello, or Leonardo de Cubello on a few occasions12. He appears once as Cobello in a document of Sardinian governor Ferrer Bertran, dated 03 June 1417 in Cagliari13. In the most likely hypothesis, Leonardo would be the illegitimate son or, more probably, the son from a previous relationship of his mother. This hypothesis would partially explain the choice of the surname Cubello14. In fact, there would be no explaining why to choose the mother’s family name instead of a more widespread Giudicato toponym. It might be a matter of conscious will to cancel from his own name a direct reference to his Giudicato origin. If this were the case, there would be the intention to deny a part of his own identity-based memory in favour of the maternal line, less known than Arborea, and above all more pleasing to the Catalan-Aragonese. Again, following a hypothetical discourse based on conjecture, it may be a sort of damnatio memoriae imposed by the faction he belonged to, or autonomously chosen, with the precise purpose of detaching from the cumbersome tradition of Arborea. In the Capitulation of 1410, there is a chapter forbidding the use of insignia of Arborea, and of the title of iudex and of the Giudicato of Arborea. In 1416, the Cagliari councillors denounced Cubello to the sovereign precisely because he was using the insignia of Arborea and incited the population upon shouting the name of Arborea15. The family identifying title Arborea appeared with the sons Antony, holder of the Marquisate, and Salvatore, in 1446 and 1452, during the meetings of the military branch of the Sardinian Parliament16. 12 See: § Unpublished sources; Artizzu, Francesco. “Registri e carte reali…”: 261–318; Putzulu, Evandro. “’Cartulari de Arborea’…”: 71–170; D’arienzo, Luisa. Documenti sui visconti di Narbona…: passim. 13 ACA, Cancillería, Alfonso V, 544r. 14 Genealogie medievali…: 61, tavv. 33/ 23; Costa, Maria Mercè. “Una possibile ‘giudicessa’ d’Arborea”: 43–44. 15 ACA, Cancillería, Alfonso V, 247r.; Tola, Pasquale. Codice Diplomatico: II, doc. 5, 38. 16 I parlamenti di Alfonso. Alberto Boscolo, eds.

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The source that inform us of Leonardo’s parents is late – from the eighteenth century – and oriented towards justifying his lineage. Two other sources that discuss the matter of the marquisate are from the late sixteenth century and refer to the manuscripts of the Proto-Arca and of the pseudoProto-Arca. The source chronologically closest to Leonardo Cubello, who identifies him with the Arborea, is Zurita in the sixteenth century17. Given these premises, one may wonder whether a source distant from the events in which they took place might be unreliable. Until new data are found, originating from contemporary documentation, that confirm or modify the known genealogical data on Cubello, his family origin ought to be treated with great caution. Having considered this, the landscape may be opened to other hypotheses in which Leonardo does not belong to the Bas-Serra family, but to a family of maiorales quite close to the Arboreas. It is known that he entered into marriage with Quirica Deiana, who appears to have been related to Cubello’s mother, and that the closest relatives, sisters and children, married cadets originating from SardinianCatalan Houses18. The marriage policy implemented by the Cubello family would appear oriented towards reconciling, on the level of the family group, the cultural interests, and of course the political and economic interests, of the two parties: Giudicato of Arborea and Catalan. It is possible that a cadet originating from a union of this kind was deemed the bearer – even only symbolically – of a unifying vision of the two factions. For this reason, it had to be more welcome and useful than a legitimate Arborea heir with French or Catalan ancestors. In fact, both William of Narbonne of Arborea with French ancestors, and William Hugh of Rocabertì, from Arborea with Catalan ancestors, were detached from the contingent Sardinian situation. They had no direct experience of the island’s geography and society and were to all effects foreigners. Probably, both the Catalan-Aragonese and those in the Giudicato, or at least a part of them, 17 Coscojuela, marquès de. Memorial de los estados que le pertenecen en el Reyno de Cerdena. 1712; Scarpa Senes, Mirella. La guerra e la disfatta del Marchese di Oristano dal manoscritto di G. Proto Arca. Cagliari: edizioni Castello, 1997; Laneri, Maria Teresa Rosaria. “Giovanni Arca e il Bellum marchionicum”, Multas per gentes: studi in memoria di Enzo Cadoni. Sassari: EDES, 2000: 147–175. ; Proto Arca sardo. De bello et interitu marchionis Oristanei. Maria Teresa Rosaria Laneri, eds. Cagliari: Centro di Studi Filologici Sardi – CUEC, 2003; Armangué i Herrero, Joan. “Il fondo sardo-catalano della Collezione Bonsoms della Biblioteca de Catalunya (s. XV)”, Insula, 7 (2010): 47–78. 18 Genealogie medievali…: 61, tavv. 33 / 23–28.

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were well aware that the people, but above all the influential GiudicatoCatalan families, could not except a person extraneous to certain dynamics. It is useful to recall how William of Narbonne was welcomed upon his arrival on the island, and the “monitoring” treatment he was given19. The heir leading the patrimony of the Giudicato had to be a man of the Giudicato in some way linked to the Arboreas, but that at the same time marked a difference from it, and who showed a capacity to manage and control the Giudicato’s “nobility,” as well as, of course, loyalty to the Crown. A person with these characteristics was, in fact, Leonardo Cubello. These features probably became useful and, perhaps, inevitable after 1409. 3.1 Cubello according to the documents20 The following is an attempt at a brief analysis of the correspondence from the standpoint of content and form. The themes dealt with concern policy and personal questions. What emerges from the documentation consulted with regard to the correspondence between the Marquis of Oristano and the sovereign of the Crown of Aragon is political in nature, also in those cases in which the main topic is the kind of people close to Cubello (Elia de Palmas, his son, ambassadors)21. The nature of the missives produced in the context of the administration of the Kingdom of Sardinia is useful information regarding the sovereign or other officials and outlines a dual figure of the marquis. A portion of the documentation shows him as an ambiguous person, traditionally an enemy of the Crown. These traits appear constant in the correspondence produced by the Cagliari councillors at least until late 1416. Information appears of possible anti-Crown alliances with Genoa in two papers from 1416, produced respectively by John of Ribesaltes and by the Count of Quirra Berenger Carroz, who are said to have this information from Cagliari. At the same time, in the correspondence of other officials of the Kingdom of Sardinia, and of 19 Gallinari, Luciano. “Guglielmo III di Narbona”: 91–121. 20 See: § Unpublished sources: Artizzu, Francesco. “Registri e carte reali…”: 261–318; Putzulu, Evandro. “’Cartulari de Arborea’…”: 71–170; D’arienzo, Luisa. Documenti sui visconti di Narbona…: passim. 21 See: § Unpublished sources; Sini, Giovanni. “Elia de Palmas. La professione di diplomatico ecclesiastico durante un periodo di mutamento a cavallo tra XIV e XV secolo”, RiMe. Rivista di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea, 12 (2014): 107–136.

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the sovereign himself, Cubello is described as a faithful vassal of the Crown, and willing – above all economically – to aid in the cause against the rebels and against William of Narbonne. So clear a discordance within the administration is curious, and, in our opinion, is also indicative of an attempt to discredit Cubello by the Cagliari councillors. For the period in which these accusations were made, one notes an extreme temporal proximity with the juridical actions brought by the Bas-Serra-Rocabertì family, especially for the period from 1413 to 1416. In fact, it is held that there was some sort of link, to be verified and whose nature is to be investigated, between the Cagliari councillors and that family. The policy carried out by Cubello appears to be one of caution with regard to the sovereign. However, although the tone of the correspondence was cautions and marked by due deference, the communications between Cubello and the sovereign were certain and decisive. This may be seen above all in the Marquis’s requests, never made with authoritative or demanding tones, but with the tones of someone who knows he wants and must obtain something he is entitled to from a person he depends on, and whom he must address with respect. The tones that may be read in the archive papers between the sovereign and the royal officials cause one to think – even though he was a faithful vassal – of a delicate relationship imposed at least upon prudence with respect to Cubello. This is most likely because he was still a former Giudicato official, and probably also because he had a great amount of available money22.

4. People and territories. Men of the Giudicato and of the marquisate. Continuity and cultural transfer Upon the conclusion of the experience of the Giudicato of Arborea in 1410 and the birth at that time of the Marchisate of Oristano, the question is raised of whether the Giudicato’s cultural tradition still made sense in the aftermath of the signing of the Capitolazione. It would be useful to assess the forces and interests in the field by identifying the various macro-factions. In the first decade of the fifteenth century, the island was subdivided between: the Catalan-Aragonese, Iberian by birth and culture; 22 See: § Unpublished sources; Sini, Giovanni. “Elia de Palmas…”: 107–136.

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the Catalan-Aragonese assimilated with the Sardinians; the CatalanAragonese of the Kingdom of Sardinia and those of its capital; Doria; the so-called rebels; the inhabitants of Oristano. The list and identification of the various parties might go on and see the intersection of various groups; a dedicated study would be needed. Instead, in order to help cast light on the cultural and social inheritances of the Giudicato, it is useful to investigate the composition of Oristano’s population. The documentation that permits an analysis of this kind, although circumstantial, regards two acts requiring the signature of various inhabitants of the place: the Peace of Sanluri of 1388 and the Capitolazione di San Martino of 1410. By analyzing the people involved and called upon to sign the two documents, one may note how one finds, for the city of Oristano, a large amount of common surnames. There are also cases of people with the same names and surnames: cases of homonymy, or more likely the same persons, also given the brief interval of time between the two documents. After twenty-two years, the dynamics and social equilibria – and perhaps the political and economic ones, too – were substantially unchanged. The illustrious viri oristanesi who swore loyalty to the Crown on 30 March 1410 were 23 in number; 15 belonged to families also present for the Peace of 1388, while for three of them, we may suppose either three cases of homonymy or that these are the same people present for both documents. The interval separating the two documents is relatively brief in the course of a lifetime, and yet in a period such as the one being analyzed, there were many changes, including radical ones. It appears important to stress this tendency that was recorded, apparently in antithesis with the flow of change traversing the island and the Crown. However, this conservative aspect of the composition of the social stratum may be indicative for supposing a set of families linked to Cubello and that supported him – but above all connected with a different idea of living with the Giudicato tradition, an idea that saw the possibility of finding a compromise with those who were now “neighbours”: the old CatalanoAragonese enemies. These families were: Caria, Carta, Archa, de Sorj, de Sii, de Mara, de Serra, and Pisanu. It is possible to start from these families to investigate ties to the Crown and, where possible, help decipher the political aims and dynamics23. 23 For the Capitulation of 1410, consideration was made only of the list of notable men, and not the list of all the signers, plus 500 inhabitants of Oristano and the surrounding areas. Tola, Pasquale. Codice Diplomatico…: I, doc. CL, 817–861, II, doc. 5, 42–43.

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The Capitolazione cames to the aid as regards the territories composing the Marchesato: civitatem Oristani praedictam cum omnibus eius accessoriis, Campidano, Parte de Milis, fortalitiis, villagiis, et civitatibus, et comitatum et castrum Gociani. These are virtually the original territories of the Giudicato of Arborea24.

5. A reconstructed identity-based memory? Paragraph “3 Cubello family, the beginning. Some considerations” notes the fact that the toponym Arborea is documented for the Marquises of Oristano in the late period. It appears interesting how this name, for a number of decades (almost a half-century), in the known sources, is not used. In fact, it would appear to have been omitted, in part following the decisions taken in the Capitulation, and in part by choices that currently, as they are not documented, escape us, but that we may attempt to identify. Leonardo Cubello was in fact linked to the Giudicato party: he was a man of the Giudicato who fought the Crown. For the Catalano-Aragonese, despite the actions taken to draw closer and swear loyalty to the Crown and sovereign, he remained a former Giudicato supporter. During a delicate period for the Iberians, a figure like Leonardo was probably feared for his ability to bring the Sardinian peoples together and guide their opinions and favours. This particular characteristic of his also derived, beyond his personal relationship talents, from the enormous economic resources available to him, and from what the himself represented for the Sardinians25. The Arborea toponym reappears in the documentation after the title of Marquis of Oristano became, with Antony Cubello, hereditary for the female line as well. This is a privilege that the sovereign Alfonso the Magnanimous granted after he assessed the proximity to the cause of the Crown by the Cubello brothers on the occasion of the battle of Ponza26. 24 Casula, Francesco Cesare. Profilo storico della Sardegna Catalano-Aragonese. Cagliari: Edizioni della Torre, 1982: 117–122; Tola, Pasquale. Codice Diplomatico…: II, doc. 5, 39; Casula, Francesco Cesare. La Sardegna aragonese. 25 On the economic resources available to Cubello and the impact that he had on the Giudicato’ inhabitants See: § Unpublished sources. 26 Era, Antonio. “Momenti delle relazioni tra Genova e Barcellona intorno al 1435: Battaglia di Ponza”, 4. Congreso de Historia de la Corona de Aragón, Mallorca 25

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The reference in 1446 and in 1452 to Antony and Salvatore Cubello as Arboreas may be a way to recognize the Cubello family within the Arborea tradition as direct depository of the Giudicato party. It would appear that in nearly the mid fifteenth century, the term “Arborea” no longer evoked the fear of revolt among the Catalan-Aragonese. In fact, as it was used in the acts of the Parliaments, it is held that there was a certain desire, also among the Aragonese, to hand down the memory of the Giudicato’s past. There would appear to be an attempt to recover historical memory and the attempt to ennoble the name, thereby normalizing Arborea’s tradition within the Crown, in order to raise its prestige. This long process began with the so-called damnatio memoriae of Leonardo Cubello, expunging any reference to the Arboreas, as early as 1410, and ended up, from the early to the mid-fifteenth century, recovering a name – Arborea in fact – that evoked, in addition to revolts and traumas (economic and human), the importance of an antique and noble, indomitable native house which, a century later, the Crown had managed to bring into its ranks. The documentation also shows the reflowering of this toponym in collateral genealogical lines like Carroz Arborea. The viceroy of the Kingdom of Sardinia, Nicolas Carroz Arborea, by appealing to his ascendency through his material line from the Arboreas, claimed the Marquisate, in conflict with the man who was later the last Marquis of Oristano: Leonardo Alagon Arborea27. Following the rebellion of Leonardo Alagon, the battle of Macomer, and the consequent end of the Marquisate, it is possible that recognitions closer to the Arboreas were created precisely in this period28.

septembre – 2 octubre 1955. Palma de Mallorca: Excma Diputacion Provincial de Baleares, 1959: 173–192; Soddu, Alessandro. Incastellamento in Sardegna. L’esempio di Monteleone. Aonia edizioni, 2014: 90–97. 27 § Unpublished sources; Mateu Ibars, Josefina. Los virreyes de Cerdeña: fuentes para su estudio. Padova: CEDAM, 1964: 139–144; I parlamenti di Alfonso, Alberto Boscolo, eds.: 155; Era, Antonio. Il Parlamento sardo del 1481–1485. Milano: Giuffrè editore, 1955: 256; Costa, Maria Merce. Violant Carroç. Barcelona: Dalmau, 1973; Genealogie medievali…: tavv. 30, 32, 34; Anatra, Bruno. “Dall’unificazione aragonese ai Savoia”, La Sardegna medioevale e moderna. Bruno Anatra, John Day, L. Scaraffia, eds. Torino: UTET, 1987: 365–381. 28 Scarpa Senes, Mirella. “La battaglia di Macomer (1478)”, Medioevo. Saggi e rassegne, 10 (1985): 51–64. The title of Marquis of Oristano, was handed down by the Iberian sovereigns from 1478 until the contemporary period.

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Over the centuries, the name Arborea became a setting for that which became significant in time. As an example, one may cite the affair of the Marquis Coscojuela, and in parallel the one during that same period involving the Marchioness of Villasor. Both sought an ascendency and connection by blood with the Arboreas, in such a way as to be able to claim lands or at any rate to obtain therefrom an exclusive benefit in social prestige29. Until the first Marquis of Oristano, the term “Arborea” appears to be symbolically associated with revolt and rebellion, and therefore with a traumatic event for the Crown. It is a name that incited and instilled courage and the will for rebellion, and therefore the hope for a better life for the Sardinians of the Giudicato30. As early as the second half of the fifteenth century, with the demands of Nicolas Carroz, until the early eighteenth century, the toponym Arborea became an instrument of social ascent and retaliation.

Conclusions The desire has recently been expressed to commemorate the Battle of Macomer on the occasion of its 540th anniversary in 2018. The idea is to build a monument to the Battle to put in a public space. The monument is to be built by the winner of a competition of ideas promoted by the municipality of Macomer31. The name “Arborea” does not appear in the municipality’s records; the desire emerges to commemorate a moment in local history prominently featuring two major alliances, the outcome of which would have enduring repercussions. On the other hand, issues connected with the mythical end of the island’s independence have appeared in the leading local news outlets32. 29 Coscojuela, marquès de. Memorial de los estados …; Armangué i Herrero, Joan. “Il fondo sardo-catalano della Collezione Bonsoms della Biblioteca de Catalunya (s. XV)”, Insula, 7 (2010): 47–78. 30 ACA, Cancillería, Alfonso V, doc. 247. 31 ; . 32 ; . 33 ; ; .

Rafaella Pilo Università degli Studi di Cagliari

The political role of noblewomen in the Kingdom of Sardinia at the time of the Camarasa Parliament (1666–1668): a preliminary study

The purpose of this essay is to offer an original perspective on the events taking place in the Kingdom of Sardinia during the second half of the seventeenth century, starting from certain important – albeit little-known – female figures of noblewomen who took part in various ways in parliamentary and extra-parliamentary affairs during that complicated period.

1. A long introduction Philip IV died in September del 1665. The destiny of Habsburgs dynasty of Madrid was, starting from that time, linked to the fortunes of Prince Charles: the importance and delicacy of the situation, no less than the  young prince’s health, resulted in suffocating overprotectiveness of the heir to the throne. It was an overprotectiveness that his mother, the regent queen Mariana of Austria – Philip IV’s second wife and sister of the emperor Leopold I – shared with his governess the marchioness of Los Vélez and with a courtly entourage formed mostly by noblewomen possessing a superstitious and fanatical religiosity1. The queen was led by the experience of the marchioness whose influence conditioned – particularly in the first phases of her regency – her political decisions and the choice of her confessor, the Jesuit Nithard, as 1

Álvarez Ossorio-Alvariño, Antonio. “Virtud coronada: Carlos II y la piedad de la Casa de Austria”, Homenaje a Joaquín Pérez Villanueva: Política, religión e inquisición en la España moderna, Virgilio Pinto Crespo, Pablo Fernández Albaladejo, José Martinez Millán, dirs. Madrid: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 1996: 29–58.

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a man of faith and favoured minister2. A concrete political support to the German minister was provided by the marchioness when dealing with the Portuguese question: in line with the favourite, she too advised the sovereign to continue the conflict and abandon the prospects for peace that had opened in 1666. Also expressing themselves in this sense were Consejo de Flandes, Consejo de Aragón, and Consejo de Guerra, which had voted in favour of continuing the conflict over the fact that Portuguese territory was considered as belonging by right to the Spanish Crown, and that the regent was in no case juridically authorized to renounce Portugal3. She therefore had to conserve the Portuguese domain in order to transmit it intact to her son, who was the legitimate owner of that province of the empire4. The two questions – on the one hand the military campaign for the Portuguese reconquest after the rebellion of 1640, and on the other the rise to power of a favourite wholly disliked by the Madrid elite – were soon to overlap. In his testament, Philip IV had ordered the ad hoc creation of a new body, the Junta de Gobierno, endowed with considerable power, which, throughout the decade 1665–1675, until Charles II reached adulthood and the long phase of regency had come to an end, would assist the queen in ruling. The members of the Junta were ministers in the King’s absolute trust, that he had chosen paying great attention to internal balance: The Count of Peñaranda represented diplomacy, Cardinale Aragón the Church, the Marquis of Aytona the Catalan-Aragonese front, Crespí the law, and the Count of Castrillo experience5. The issue of domain over Portuguese soil was such a priority for the Spanish sovereign that as soon as the Peace of the Pyrenees was concluded with France, he harboured the secret hope of restoring Portugal to the Spanish Crown in relatively short order: towards this end, and with 2

3

4 5

Sánchez Marcos, Valeriano. “El poder de una mujer en la Corte: la V marquesa de los Vélez y los últimos Fajardo (segunda mitad del s. XVII)”, Revista velezana, Nº. 25, 2006: 19–65, but pp. 39–40. Cardim, Pedro. “Los portugueses frente a la Monarquía Hispánica”, La Monarquía de las Naciones. Patria, nación y naturaleza en la monarquía de España, Antonio Álvarez Ossorio-Alvariño, Bernardo José García García, dirs. Madrid: Fundación Carlos de Amberes, 2004: 355–383. Valladares, Rafael. La rebelión de Portugal (1640–1680). Guerra, conflicto y poderes en la monarquía hispánica. Valladolid: Junta de Castilla y León, 1998: 209–219. On the Junta de Gobierno (or de Regencia) see Sevilla González, Mari Carmen. “La Junta de Gobierno en la minoridad del Rey Carlos II”, Los validos, José Antonio Escudero López, dir. Madrid: Dykinson, 2004: 583–616.

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enormous difficulty, three armed corps placed under his command had been joined together, respectively of don Juan José of Austria, the King’s illegitimate son, of the Duke of Osuna, formerly the general in the army cavalry against Portugal, and of the Marquis of Viana. The operations of war ended up in a total debacle, and the Portuguese question, which remained open until 1668, became one of the key issues at the time of the Nithard affair6. Another problem that forcefully emerged precisely in correspondence with the celebration of the Camarasa Parliament was that of diplomatic relations with the France of Louis XIV: this was a pending question of crucial importance for Spanish foreign policy between 1648 and 1659, which was to be reopened in the second half of the 1660s, generating a situation of urgency that could not tolerate signs of unfaithfulness on the part of the Sardinian elite7. Admittedly, the main issues following the death of Philip IV and largely connected with a situation of regency were rather clear right from the first part of the decade 1660–1670. In fact, starting from the conclusion of the valimiento of Luis de Haro in 1661 – the same year as the death of Cardinal Mazarine and the start of the so-called “monarchical revolution” in France8 –, power passed through various hands, without being concentrated in those of a single figure analogous or at least that may be likened to those of Olivares and Haro9: between 1661 and 1665, the kingdom’s government was co-managed by two bitter rival, the Duke of Medina de Las Torres and Count Castrillo10. 6

Elliott, John Huxtable. La Spagna imperiale 1469–1716. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1982: 414. See also White, Lorraine. “Estrategia geográfica y fracaso en la reconquista de Portugal por la monarquía hispánica, 1640–1668”, Studia Historica, vol. 25, (2003): 59–91. On the Nithard affaire see Pilo, Rafaella. Juan Everardo Nithard y sus “Causas no causas”. Razones y pretextos para el fin de un valimiento. Madrid-Córdoba: Sílex-Cajasur, 2010. 7 Arte y diplomazia de la Monarquía Hispánica en el siglo XVII. José Luis Colomer, dir. Madrid: Fernando Villaverde, 2003. 8 Ruocco, Giovanni. Lo stato sono io. Luigi XIV e la “rivoluzione monarchica” del marzo 1661. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2002. 9 On de Haro see the recent publications Malcolm, Alistair. Royal Favouritism and the Governing Elite of the Spanish Monarchy, 1640–1665. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017 and El mundo de un valido. Don Luis de Haro y su entorno, 1643–1661. Rafael Valladares, dir. Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2016. 10 A few years later, despite the rivalry, both conspired to chase Nithard from the court of Madrid. See Pilo, Rafaella. Juan Everardo Nithard…: 147–150.

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However, January 1666 saw the beginning of the unstoppable rise of the German Jesuit Nithard, followed shortly thereafter by the Madrid elite’s profound hostility towards him, and the consequent political reaction to his government. Near to or remote from reality, the accusations that the Madrid ministers launched in the Jesuit’s direction were quite serious: he was deemed wholly the emperor’s vassal and, as such, was frowned upon by most of the Spanish ministers. In particular, the situation festered due to the compliant attitude of Emperor Leopold towards Louis XIV’s aggressive policy against the Spanish monarchy: this imperial policy, and especially Viennese neutrality on the occasion of the French invasion of the Flemish states, was deemed intolerable by an ally, and led to the definitive break of the Madrid-Vienna axis that had been a cornerstone of Spanish foreign policy since the previous century. According to Madrid, imperial policy had compromised the interests of the Spanish Crown, in terms of both foreign and internal policy. It was then that the fact of having in Madrid – in a situation of regency and with a prince who was still a minor – a German favourite appeared intolerable in the eyes of most of the ministers, and even those who had up to that time been linked to the imperial party. He was in fact the vassal of a sovereign whose neutral policy had been transformed into anti-Spanish policy, and in substance, into a pro-empire emissary that sat in the main bodies of the monarchy’s power (Consejo de Estado and Junta de Gobierno) and whose presence kept the Spanish ministers from freely expressing their opinions on the decisions to be taken with regard to both the emperor and to the French sovereign, because it was suspected that the Jesuit might divulge secret decisions11. Let us return to the two thorny questions that the Catholic monarchy, already in crisis, had to deal with at that time12: Portuguese independence and the Flemish situation. Once the Peace with France was signed (Peace of the Pyrenees, 1659), Philip IV counted, as already discussed, on being able to reintegrate Portugal into the Spanish Crown as soon as French intervention in the Portuguese question had ceased13. To the contrary, the Flemish question was a great concern for the Spanish ministers: towards this end, Queen Mariana had the thought, in consideration of the military successes 11 Pilo, Rafaella. Juan Everardo Nithard …: 220–230. 12 On the theme of the decadence at the time of Philip IV, see now Martínez Millán, José. “El reinado de Felipe IV como decadencia de la Monarquía hispana”, La Corte de Felipe IV (1621–1665). Reconfiguración de la Monarquía católica. 3 voll., Madrid: Polifemo, 2015: I, 3–56. 13 Elliott, John Huxtable. La Spagna imperiale…: 414.

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reported in Catalonia in the 1650s and on Portuguese soil at that time, of sending Flanders the deceased king’s illegitimate son, don Juan José14. In the spring of 1667, the regent wrote to the Viceroy of Sardinia, the Marquis of Camarasa, as to the news coming from France: the news was not at all good, given that the ambassador Luis XIV had delivered her a letter in which the French king declared himself. con ánimo de ponerse en campaña al fin del mes de mayo para ir a tomar la posesión de Brabante y otros estados de los Países Bajos por tocar (según pretende) su sucesión a la reyna christianísima su mujer si antes no se le ofrecía algún amigable acomodamiento15.

The queen had declared herself willing to seek a diplomatic solution to the French sovereign’s renewed appetite, but was well aware of the real intentions of Luis, roy de guerre of Baroque Europe. In the meantime, in Madrid, the ministers were still grappling with the question of war against Portugal: the Madrid government had enormous difficulties in taking a univocal position and was therefore substantially incapable of finding a solution other than that of continuing a war that had been becoming a slow agony16.

2. The Kingdom of Sardinia (1665–1668) Alongside so delicate a situation in the Spanish court, the Sardinian affairs were an additional indicator of the scant decisiveness of Madrid’s directives, as well as the weakness of the political action of some viceroys17. 14

See the now classic Von Kalnein, Albrecht Graf. Juan José de Austria en la España de Carlos II. Historia de una regencia. Lérida. Milenio, 2001. See also the more recent Ruiz Rodríguez, Ignacio. Don Juan José de Austria en la Monarquía Hispánica. Entre la política, el poder y la intriga. Madrid: Dykinson, 2007, especially for the rich transcription of documents. 15 Archivio Storico Diocesano di Cagliari, uncatalogued material, Stamento 1666–1668, f. 141rv, Mariana of Austria, 08 June 1667: the queen reports that the King of France, disregarding the prescriptions of article 90 of the Peace Treaty of the Pyrenees, had just advised her of his warlike intentions. 16 Valladares, Rafael. “Portugal en el Orden Hispánico”, La Monarquía Hispánica en tiempos del Quijote, Porfirio Sanz y Camañes, dir. Madrid: Sílex, 2005: 493–500. 17 See now Musi, Aurelio. L’impero dei viceré. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2013 and Rivero Rodríguez, Manuel. La edad de oro de los virreyes. El virreinato en la Monarquía Hispánica durante los siglos XVI y XVII. Madrid: Akal, 2011.

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In this sense, alongside the traditional studies on the main figures of the Camarasa Parliament, it is also interesting to expand the investigation to the actual role played by some important noblewomen during the celebration of the Cortes and at the time immediately after the closure, in correspondence with the grave crimes occurring between June and July 166818. The Sardinian Cortes met, as already stated, in January 1666, and were closed in May 1668 without the approval of the donation by the Kingdom’s elite, after two years of the viceroy’s tenacious search for consensus, and an equally tenacious opposition to the policy of the catholic crown by the three branches (stamenti) of which it was composed. The questions dealt with both at the sessions of the individual branches and in the plenary sessions did not appear to offer any shared ground between the Sardinian elite and the Crown: the presentation of various disentimientos served to create effective obstructionism and to greatly slow the proceedings of the plenary sessions; the claims linked to the attribution of the highest offices of the Kingdom to the Sardinian subjects in the hands, however, of parties outside the Kingdom, and the claim of other privileges, were some of the debated issues on which it was impossible to find a point of contact. In parallel, the question of the rivalry between the Kingdom’s Capo Nord and Capo Sud re-emerged19: the former, represented by the Vico family which coordinated the opposition in both the ecclesiastical and the royal branches, was oriented towards vigorously supporting the aspirations and privileges of the city of Sassari in a manner hostile to both the Crown and to the Capo Sud; conversely, the latter, and in particular Cagliari’s city elite, appeared to conduct a proMadrid policy20. The conflict between the capital city of Cagliari and the Sassari of the Vico family was creeping along but quite present during the entire development of the Cortes21.

18 Pilo, Rafaella. “Il Parlamento del viceré Manuel de los Cobos marchese di Camarasa (1666–1668)”, Acta Curiarum Regni Sardiniae, in press. 19 Manconi, Francesco. Tener la patria gloriosa. I conflitti municipali nella Sardegna spagnola. Cagliari: CUEC, 2008. 20 Pilo, Rafaella. Il Parlamento del viceré Manuel de los Cobos … 21 Manconi, Francesco. “Un letrado sassarese al servizio della Monarchia ispanica. Appunti per una biografia di Francisco Ángel de Vico y Artea”, Sardegna, Spagna e Mediterraneo dai Re Cattolici al Secolo d’Oro, Bruno Anatra, Giovanni Murgia, eds. Roma: Carocci, 2004: 291–333.

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Admittedly, there were many issues of rupture and, a few weeks after the Parliament’s closure in a situation of total political disagreement between Madrid’s demands maintained by the viceroy Marquis of Camarasa, and those of the parliamentary opposition, two very serious bloody events took place: in a matter of two months, the Marquis of Laconi Agustín de Castelví, the main representative of the military stamento and undisputed leader of the opposition movement against the viceroy (June 1668) and, shortly thereafter, the viceroy himself, (July 1668) were killed. In both cases, the scene of the crimes was the city’s streets and, in particular the Castello neighbourhood, where up to a few days earlier the meetings of the branches and the plenary sessions of the Parliament had been held. The neighbourhood where Cagliari’s nobility resided thus represented the beating heart of the political life of the city and of the Kingdom during the long months of parliamentary debate, and set the stage for the tragic events following the closure of the Cortes. The role and the specific weight of the noblewomen in this complicated setting is, as things currently stand, anything but clear. This study’s claim is to sketch the outline of the figures of four important noblewomen who played a key role in such a dramatic situation: Teresa Masons y Vico, mother of the archbishop of Cagliari Pedro de Vico and widow of the Sardinian regent of the Consejo de la Corona de Aragón Francisco de Vico; the Marchioness of Villasor, mother of the young Marquis of Villasor who, faithful to the Crown, was designated a leader of the parliamentary opposition against the Marquis of Laconi starting from March 1668; Francisca Zatrillas, the wife of the Marquis of Laconi; Isabel de Portocarrero, the wife of the viceroy. The study of the political leadership of figures who do not hold institutional offices often conceals some difficulties connected with ascertaining actual involvement in the affairs in which the important officeholders are implicated, most of the times in this case husbands or sons. During the plenary meetings of the Parliament, it was quite difficult for the viceroy to reach an agreement with the local elite and, as already mentioned, Parliament was closed two years later without approval of the donation by the three branches: this was unique in the long history of the Parliaments of Spain’s “multiple Kingdom.” What exactly happened between the elite of the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Crown? And in particular, for what reasons, in this complicated situation, is it so important to understand the political attitude of Sardinian noblewomen and, in substance, their role?

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Reconstructing the factional dynamics may be useful for understanding the situation and can also be of some help for bringing some clarity to the hot season of parliamentary debate. The viceroy Camarasa was incapable of reaching consensus, and all the branches were openly hostile right from the opening of Parliament: the military branch followed the policy of its leader the Marquis of Laconi, who was one of the main leaders in these events, and we shall be soon be returning to this; the ecclesiastical branch was led by the first representative, the Archbishop of Cagliari Pedro de Vico22; the royal branch, the one that represented the cities, consisted of many síndicos (diplomatic representatives of the cities) who were for the most part adverse to the viceroy’s policy. Of these síndicos, we shall discuss only that of the city of Sassari, Gerónimo Zonza y Vico (relative of the Archibishop Vico), due to the enormous number of disentimentos he presented to the Cortes with the crystal-clear attempt to slow parliamentary proceedings and to place on the plate the issues connected with the interests of the city he represented. It thus occurred that opposition to all the stamenti thwarted Camarasa’s prospect of obtaining the consent of the plenary assembly, since the viceroy was incapable of annihilating the claims of the Sardinian elite hostile to the Crown and, at the same time, of finding consensus in that part of the elite – a minority but a significant one – that was unfaithful to the Marquis of Laconi. As already discussed, the first representative of the military branch was one of the leaders of the parliament, even if he was in Madrid for almost the entire duration of the assembly’s proceedings: he had been sent by the three branches to the Consejo de Aragón as ambassador (síndico) of the Sardinian requests to the Crown, and made his return to Cagliari only in late May 1668, just a few days prior to the definitive closure of the Cortes. Truth be told, it is not entirely clear whether he was really on the Iberian Peninsula or whether, to the contrary, he was already in Sardinian territory awaiting the most propitious moment to reappear, with a plot twist imbued with political propaganda23.

22

On the role of Pedro de Vico in the aftermath of the Laconi murder, see the interesting considerations of Revilla Canora, Javier. Jaque al virrey: Pedro Vico y los suçesos de Zerdeña durante la regencia de Mariana de Austria, “librosdelacorte.es”, Monográfico 1, año 6, 2014, consulted on 7 May 2017. 23 Pilo, Rafaella. Il Parlamento del viceré Manuel de los Cobos …

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In fact, he kept his distance from the Cortes for many months, during which the opposition to the viceroy was conducted and led by Archbishop Vico and by the síndico Zonza until Camarasa decided to legitimate the young Marquis of Villasor, having reached the age to access Parliament, as the first representative of the military stamento, thus replacing the Marquis of Laconi. This took place only in March of 1668, when the viceroy had not yet taken the decision to close Parliament, even though Queen Mariana had already expressed herself in this sense starting the year before24. Once the Marquis of Villasor was enabled, the polemics of Laconi’s faithful took shape quite quickly, and the parliamentary struggle resumed with particular virulence: the situation quickly precipitated, and in May it was finally decided to close the Cortes. In June, the Marquis of Laconi was killed, and in July the viceroy met the same fate: as shall be seen, it marked a cruel return to the factional violence that had in some way been countenanced, if not openly supported, by the women of the respective parties in conflict.

3. The Cortes at work At this point, let us turn to two of the noblewomen just named: Teresa Masons y Vico and the Marchioness of Villasor played a role during the parliamentary debate. The former was an important exponent of the Capo di Sassari e Gallura faction, as widow of Francisco de Vico, regent in the Consejo de Aragón in the 1640s, whose political activity had been vigorously oriented towards favouring the northern portion of the Kingdom in opposition to the Cagliari elite and the privileges of the Kingdom’s capital 24 Archivio di Stato di Cagliari, Sezione I (Antica Sezione), vol. 30, f. 124r. Putzulu also reports another letter to the same effect a few days earlier: Madrid, 20 November 1666: ‘Mariana d’Austria, regina reggente di Spagna pel figlio minore don Carlo II, considerato che è già trascorso troppo tempo da che è stato aperto il parlamento che si celebra in Sardegna, invita lo Stamento reale ad agire in modo che si giunga sollecitamente alla chiusura proponendo le leggi opportune e stabilendo l’ammontare del donativo senza innovazioni e sin mezclar materias strañas deste punto’, see Putzulu, Evandro. Carte reali aragonesi e spagnole dell’Archivio Comunale di Cagliari (1358–1719). Padova: Cedam, 1959: 135.

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city, considered as firmly connected with the interests of the Crown25. The widow Vico had kinship bonds with some of the viceroy’s most passionate opponents: her son, the Archbishop Vico, who had inherited the paternal relations in the Kingdom, and the síndico Zonza y Vico, who may be considered the authentic leader of the city of Sassari’s demands and discontent with regard to the Crown, and consequently to the viceroy. At this point in the research, it is not yet clear what the noblewoman’s position was but, from the behaviour of her younger relations, it may be seen that she was favourable, or at least neutral, to a bellicose attitude towards the claims of Madrid and the viceroy. However, in the case of the Marchioness of Villasor, the consulted sources show that her approach to the situation was wholly different from that of the archbishop’s mother: the marchioness, in fact, did not want any of her criados to have an aggressive conduct, even towards the rival of her son the Marquis of Laconi, and towards the latter’s men of trust. It is established that the Marchioness belonged to the viceroy’s entourage in Cagliari and that, since Camarasa’s arrival in the Kingdom, he had openly taken sides with the Crown: the circle of those faithful to the viceroy consisted of a handful of young Spanish nobles and some Sardinian nobles, like Giuseppe Delitala, Artal de Alagón (the future Marquis of Villasor), the former viceroy prince of Piombino, and very few others. It was in fact the prince of Piombino who, writing to the vicecanciller of Consejo de Aragón Crespí in late March 1668, reassured him as to the Sardinian situation, informing him that the Marchioness of Villasor, “que no le faltan bríos,” had decided to wait to summon to Cagliari the numerous criados and followers present in his fiefs of the Kingdom, in order to protect it:26.

25 Manconi, Francesco. “Un letrado sassarese” 26 Archivo de la Corona de Aragón, Consejo de Aragón, leg. 1210, The prince of Piombino to the vicec-chancelor of Aragon, 26 March 1668, ‘Haze particolar relación del Estado de las Cortes. Embía copia del voto del Conde de Villamar, del de don Francisco Cao, y de un papel que se ha esparcido sin nombre y se tiene por deste cavallero. Y assimismo embía copia del voto del arzobispo de Cáller y de unos Pasquines contra el Fiscal Molina. Y dice también que el Marqués de Zea no cumple con su obligación’, document published in Raccolta di documenti editi e inediti per la Storia della Sardegna, 1: Documenti sulla crisi politica del Regno di Sardegna al tempo del viceré marchese di Camarasa. Marina Romero Frías, ed. Sassari: Fondazione Banco di Sardegna, 2003: 34–43, but 36.

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The same marchioness wrote to Crespí, sending him information of great concern over the Sardinian situation, and hoping that some decision capable of bringing peace back to the Kingdom might come from Madrid: ‘veo se ba destruyendo el Reyno’27 and that ‘en todas las Ciudades y Vilas hay gran mormullo’28. It is clear that analysis in this sense is only beginning, and the positions of both noblewomen require a far deeper and more accurate research work given the enticing hints presented in this brief essay.

4. The Camarasa Parliament: closure with crimes Two other female figures to which reference has been made require additional discussion. Both, in fact, exercised their influence both during parliamentary sessions and at the time of the closure of the Cortes and of the agitated circumstances caused by the crimes of the summer of 1668: the viceroy’s wife Isabel de Portocarrero and the Marquis of Laconi’s wife Francisca Zatrillas were both suspected of being the instigators of the Laconi murder. Although the facts linked to the murder of the first representative of the military stamento are very well known, the identity of whoever committed this crime is not yet entirely clear as things currently stand. In both cases, it was a propagandistic theme: in fact, if Laconi’s followers had designated the viceroy’s wife as the likeliest party, then the viceroy’s followers had identified Laconi’s wife and her supposed lover as the main instigators of a crime caused by a simple love affair: it is true

27 Archivo de la Corona de Aragón, Consejo de Aragón, leg. 1210, “La marchesa di Villasor al vicecancelliere d’Aragona Crespí de Valdaura su varie questioni relative al dibattito parlamentare, Cagliari, 26 marzo 1668”, document published in Raccolta di documenti editi e inediti per la Storia della Sardegna …: 44–51, but 44. 28 Archivo de la Corona de Aragón, Consejo de Aragón, leg. 1210, “La marchesa di Villasor al vicecancelliere d’Aragona Crespí de Valdaura su varie questioni relative al dibattito parlamentare, Cagliari, 26 marzo 1668”, document published in Raccolta di documenti editi e inediti per la Storia della Sardegna: 45.

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that Zatrillas would remarry just a few months after the murder of her first husband29. Both trials regarding the murders of the viceroy Camarasa and of the Marquis of Laconi, which were considered as closely linked, start from these two opposing perspectives30: in the first case, before the arrival of the new viceroy the Duke of San Germano, and the consequent new trial, the viceroy’s wife was considered the prime suspect for the Laconi murder. Starting from this vantage point, the murder of the viceroy Camarasa had been interpreted as a sort of reaction, in some way legitimate, to so cruel a crime committed against the most important leader of the Sardinian elite hostile to the Crown’s policy and to the viceroy himself. Instead, in the second trial – following San Germano’s arrival and the royal punishment – the central role emerged of Laconi’s widow as the chief instigator of her husband’s murder: this meant downgrading the bloody event to being a strictly private affair and not a political crime. This type of interpretation aimed to place the crime of lesa maiestatis against the viceroy Camarasa in a more solemn position, which is to say as a gratuitous crime against the Crown, disconnected from other, contemporary bloody events31. This means that the attribution of guilt to one of the two noblewomen can profoundly change the interpretation of the facts but, in the current state of affairs, we only know that Francisca Zatrillas had written her husband during the parliamentary proceedings, informing him in detail of the situation, and that she did not appear uninterested in the political struggle performed by her husband, or by her personal destiny. According to the consulted sources, Zatrillas does not appear to act as an indifferent wife or a wife that meditates conspiring against her husband. 29 Scano, Dionigi. Donna Francesca di Zatrillas marchesa di Laconi e di Sietefuentes. Notizie sugli avvenimenti che nel 1668 culminarono con gli omicidi del marchese di Laconi don Agostino di Castelvi e del marchese di Camarassa don Manuele Gomez De Los Cobos, vicere di Sardegna. Cagliari: Societa Editoriale Italiana, 1942. 30 On the Camarasa murder and the two trials, see now Revilla, Canora. Tan gran maldad no ha de hallar clemencia ni en mí piedad. El asesinato del Marqués de Camarasa, Virrey de Cerdeña,1668, Revista Escuela de Historia, 12/1, jun. 2013, versión On-line ISSN 1669–9041, consulted 7th may 2017. 31 See the lucid considerations on the Messina case, also applicable to the Sardinian case of a few years earlier, in Ribot, Luis Antonio. “Ira regis o clementia. El caso de Mesina y la respuesta a la rebelión en la Monarquía de España”, Vísperas de Sucesión. Europa y la Monarquía de Carlos II, Bernardo José García García, Antonio Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño, eds. Madrid: Fundación Carlos de Amberes, 2015: 129–158.

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The little information we have on the role of Isabel de Portocarrero leads us to define her, as in the case of Zatrillas, as a figure far from any aggressive attitude. To the contrary, the viceroy’s wife sought on every occasion to support her husband in the hard quest for parliamentary consent: for example, she offered the Kingdom her jewels in order to alleviate a grave crisis caused by the monetary devaluation that had contributed towards weakening the Sardinian economy starting in those years32. To conclude: the role of these four women, just outlined here, is an interesting topic of study.

32 Pilo, Rafaella. Il Parlamento del viceré Manuel de los Cobos …

Sebastiana Nocco CNR – Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea

Passing through the Sardinian landscape in search of signs of identity and otherness

This essay intends to propose an interpretation of Sardinia’s landscape as an account of identity, in which the signs of its inhabitants’ identity are written – but also the signs of the identity of the “Other” with whom the Sardinians found themselves living and working over the course of their long history1. This natural landscape is highly ancient – Iglesiente is among Italy’s oldest lands – and unique, which makes it a “small continent”2 strongly marked by a dense network of historical inheritances, the result of age-old contacts and exchanges with other civilizations. Sardinia – like every Italian landscape in fact, as Galasso points out – is home to history in both its urban and rural fabric. Thus, by observing with careful gaze the location and type of settlements, the city plans and their most significant innovations, the road network, land occupation, hydrography, and vegetation, we will notice many clear signs of the past3.

1 ‘La nostra biografia si riflette sempre nella biografia dei luoghi in cui siamo nati e cresciuti, come se le due biografie tendessero, se non proprio a coincidere, a determinarsi a vicenda’ (Our biography is always reflected in the biography of the places where we were born and grew up, as if the two biographies tended, if not coincide, to determine each other). Quaini, Massimo. “Il ruolo dei paesaggi storici per prescrivere il futuro”, Patrimonio culturale e paesaggio: un approccio di filiera per la progettualità territoria­le, Maria Mautone, Maria Ronza, dirs. Roma: Gangemi, 2009: 128. 2 Federici, Paolo Roberto. “La varietà dei paesaggi naturali”, Il Paesaggio Italiano. Idee Contributi Immagini. Milano: Touring Club Italiano, 2001: 26; Marcarini, Albano. “Paesaggi italiani. Tipologie da conoscere, salvaguardare, valorizzare”, Il Paesaggio Italiano…: 274–275; Pungetti, Gloria. Paesaggio in Sardegna. Storia Caratteri Po­li­ tiche. Landscape in Sardinia. History Features Policies. Cagliari: CUEC, 1996. 3 Galasso, Giuseppe. “Il paesaggio disegnato dalla storia”, Il Paesaggio Italiano…: 37–52.

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It is an interpretation that directly involves geography and the community of geographers, whose reflections in recent decades have allowed geographic thought to obtain the tools for understanding the landscape’s historic complexity, but also to identify in it potential resources for sustainable or enduring development4. Indeed, what we see as an image of the environment that surrounds us5 is merely the superficial manifestation of far deeper realities – territorial structures and environmental settings – which conceal, like invisible elements, the social relationships that produced it over the course of History6. Landscape is a structure consisting of a number of different elements, each of which with its own temporality. Therefore, in its current forms, it presents all those signs that constitute the testimonies of the various historical phases of one or more societies7. To some of these signs, over the course of time, settled communities have chosen to attribute a symbolic value underlying their own identity. However, an in-depth analysis of these elements, especially in relation to 4

5 6 7

The theme of landscape returned to the centre of geographic reflection starting in the 1980s, in the context of a deeply reshaped discipline that, from natural science had transformed itself into the science of human beings, thereby acquiring investigation methods and techniques typical of the human sciences. As Lucio Gambi hoped for some time ago, it had finally become an applied science at the service of society. Gambi, Lucio. Una geografia per la storia. Torino: Einaudi, 1973; Quaini, Massimo. “La geografia umana fra crisi della geografia e sviluppo delle scienze storiche ed ecologiche”, Colloquio sulle basi teoriche della ricerca geografica (Déjoz, 11–12 ottobre 1974). Torino: Giappichelli, 1975: 5–17; Rombai, Leonardo. “Paesaggio e territorio: il contributo della geografia storica alla programmazione territoriale e alla politica dei beni culturali e ambientali in Italia”, Atti del XXIV Congresso Geografico Italiano. La geografia per un mondo in transizione (Torino, 26–31 maggio 1986), Francesco Adamo et al., dirs. Bologna: Patron, 1989: I, 221–247; Zerbi, Maria Chiara. “Il paesaggio tra ricerca e progetto: un’introduzione”, Il paesaggio tra ricerca e progetto, Maria Chiara Zerbi, dir. Torino: Giappichelli, 1994: 3–34; Mautone, Maria. “Il paesaggio: ‘bene culturale complesso’”, I beni culturali. Risorse per l’organizzazione del territorio, Maria Mautone, dir. Bologna: Patron, 2001: 129–138; Mautone, Maria. “Patrimonio culturale e paesaggio. Dalla conoscenza alla gestione territoriale”, Patrimonio culturale e paesaggio…: 5–11; Quaini, Massimo. “Il ruolo dei paesaggi storici …”: 125–131. Zerbi, Maria Chiara. “Il paesaggio…”: 16. Gambi, Lucio. Critica ai concetti geografici di paesaggio umano. Faenza: Fratelli Lega, 1961. Sereno, Paola. “L’archeologia del paesaggio agrario: una nuova frontiera di ricerca”, Campagna e industria. I segni del lavoro. Milano: Touring Club Italiano, 1981: 24–47.

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their genesis (as we shall see when dealing with the Sardinian landscaped in particular) sometimes allows us to better place them in the category of otherness, given that they are expressions of contacts with the outside world. The European Landscape Convention signed between the Council of Europe’s Member States in February 2000 and also ratified by the Italian State, sees the landscape as a basic component of the European natural and cultural heritage, an element of consolidation of the European identity. But at the same time, it enshrines its value as a resource favourable to economic activity that can contribute to job creation while achieving sustainable development8. Today, the landscape is generally also understood as a value, a resource, an inheritance from the past, precious and fragile, not to be squandered9. This more recent understanding of “heritage” and “planning” supplements and enriches the other connotations. The term “landscape” in fact presents a certain syncretism, as it encompasses the aesthetic values of artistic understanding; the morphological and documentary values of geographical understanding; and the ecological and cultural values belonging to presentday environmental sensitivity10. Its definition implies an ambiguity and a complexity that are such as to make the search for new meanings11 – like that of place of encyclopaedic definitions, which contains different 8

Mautone, Maria. Ronza, Maria. “Convenzione Europea del Paesaggio, impronte identitarie e dinamismo postmoderno”, Politiche Europee per il Paesaggio: proposte operative, Adriana Ghersi, ed. Roma: Gangemi, 2007: 72–99. 9 Zerbi, Maria Chiara. “Il patrimonio paesaggistico: i valori della cultura”, Bollettino della Società Geografica Italiana, 12/4 (1999): 269–277. However, care should be taken to ensure that the landscape does not become goods to be consumed and manipulated, and to prevent its economic value from being placed before the cultural value. Caldo, Costantino. “Monumento e simbolo. La percezione geografica dei Beni Culturali nello spazio vissuto”, Beni culturali e geografia. Costantino Caldo, Vincenzo Guarrasi, eds. Bologna: Patron, 1994: 15–30. 10 Zerbi, Maria Chiara. “Il paesaggio…”: 25; Claval, Paul. “The idea of landscape”, Patrimonio culturale e paesaggio…: 15–22. 11 Gambino, Roberto. “Ambiguità feconda del paesaggio”, Il paesaggio tra ricerca e progetto…: 135–152; Castelnovi, Paolo. “Il senso del paesaggio. Relazione introduttiva”, Il senso del paesaggio. Paolo Castelnovi, dir. Torino: IRES, 2000: 21–37; Turco, Angelo. “Paesaggio: pratiche, linguaggi, mondi. Introduzione”, Paesaggio: pratiche, linguaggi, mondi, Angelo Turco, dir. Reggio Emilia: Diabasis, 2002: 7–49; Vallega, Adalberto. “Paesaggio: realtà oggettiva o manto di simboli?”, Patrimonio culturale e paesaggio…: 23–28; Spagnoli, Luisa. Rappresentare e ‘agire’ il paesaggio tra sostenibilità e nuove progettualità. Un itinerario geografico. Cagliari: ISEM, 2012.

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possible scripts at the same time in a “landscape- labyrinth” – a source of endless stimulation12. The rise of humanistic geography and of perception ushered in the idea of landscape seen from the subject’s point of view, and has long undertaken – from both the naturalistic and historic standpoints – the road of the landscape as a geo-system in the former case, or as a historical product in the latter. Today, we tend to consider the landscape rather as a symbol, as a mental construct, a representation, an idea guiding the action of given social parties. Attention is focused, then, on the distinction between insider and outsider, and on the different roles for each13. “Landscape” has no meaning on its own, but takes on meaning through the representations and ideologies of social groups. It is a cultural phenomenon: application to reality of the models of perception and be­ haviour developed by them14. This arrangement makes it possible to recover the importance of the gaze, by privileging, depending on the approach, the vision of the insider or that of the outsider15. The geographer aims to privilege the vision of the insider that feels him or herself to be part of or heir to that community that forged the territory. Instead, the planner prefers to address the tourist exploiting the landscape, with all the implications that derive from these choices of subject matter. Thus, for example, Denis Cosgrove privileges the insider’s gaze and considers the landscape a cultural image, a way to represent structures or to symbolize what surrounds us. Therefore, all the landscapes produced by humans in the process of appropriating or transforming the environment are symbolic landscapes16. Modern anthropology devotes much attention to the function of the gaze, attributing an anthropological/cultural value to human-made signs. It proposes to us to read the many signs recognizable in the landscape as an expression of a society’s spatial organizations, of its cultural specificity, 12 Quaini, Massimo. “Il paesaggio: labirinto enciclopedico o strumento analitico?”, Il paesaggio tra fattualità e finzione, Massimo Quaini, dir. Bari: Cacucci, 1994: 5–12. 13 Quaini, Massimo. “Il paesaggio…”: 9. 14 Guérin, Jean Paul. “Il paesaggio: problema sociale”, Il paesaggio tra ricerca e progetto…: 117–122. 15 Turri, Eugenio. “Sguardi al paesaggio”, Paesaggio: pratiche, linguaggi, mondi…: 53–61. 16 Cosgrove, Denis. Realtà sociali e paesaggio simbolico, Clara Copeta, ed. Milano: Unicopli, 1990 (or. ed. Social Formation and Symbolic Landscape. London: Croom Helm, 1984).

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which to say its way of giving the value of sign to the objects through which it makes its territorial action concrete17. The landscape therefore reveals to us that society’s way of living and of territorializing space. It constitutes the representation that a society offers of itself and of its how it operates in nature. One may speak of the landscape as a stage composed of physical elements of antique formation, into which the more recent events in human history are inserted. We may compare it to a blackboard full of history, a palimpsest of the acting performed on that stage by generation after generation, since the most remote past18. The past of humans may in fact be reconstructed through the many signs they have left, even involuntarily, in the territory. The landscape is unceasing history, the sum of overlapping events. It lives, and has stories to tell. But its story is actually our story, which changes in accordance with our memory, our culture, and our perception of those places19. Understanding the territorial motivations of the past has now become indispensable for guiding and governing the choices made today, in order to understand how people perceive the landscape they live in, and what places are, for them, most significant and evocative of memories and fondness20. Sound support is provided by the modern geography of complexity, which is founded precisely upon understanding multiple viewpoints, the representations projected onto the landscapes, and the practices and strategies traversing the territories and places21. In fact, every society characterizes its territory with its own signs, and is rooted in it by exalting its “sense of belonging”. The latter concept allows people to see themselves in and to identify with those “places” where the layering accumulated over time permits the continuity of historical identity, and propose innovative manifestations of it22. 17 Turri, Eugenio. “La lettura del paesaggio”, Il paesaggio tra ricerca e progetto…: 35–62; Turri, Eugenio. Il paesaggio come teatro. Dal territorio vissuto al territorio rappresentato. Venezia: Marsilio, 2003: 162–164. 18 Turri, Eugenio. Il paesaggio come teatro…: 178. 19 Turri, Eugenio. “Il paesaggio tra persistenza e trasformazione”, Il paesaggio italiano…: 63–74. 20 Turri, Eugenio. Il paesaggio come teatro…: 180–184. 21 Quaini, Massimo. “Attraversare il paesaggio: un percorso metaforico nella pianifica­ zione territoriale. Osservazioni in margine alla relazione di Paolo Castelnovi e all’e­ sperienza di pianificazione che si va facendo in Liguria”, Il senso del paesaggio…: 281–293. 22 Mautone, Maria. “Il paesaggio tra identità e territorialità”, Bollettino della Società Geografica Italiana, s. XII, IV (1999): 331–338.

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A space is promoted to becoming place of memory and identity with a series of mental processes through which, in a given historical moment, a society decides to attribute symbolic value to the signs that are impressed daily onto its territory, and entrusts to these signs the role of bearing witness to its own identity23. Rapid changes, quick and frequent movements, and the transformations connected to global processes have prompted a progressive loss of traditional landscapes and of their culture24. The risk of losing one’s own culture and one’s own way of life stimulates a reactivity that leads to assigning symbolic value to certain points of the territory25. In fact, when it is the landscape that is missing, humans are prompted to seek their own identity26. The relationship between a group of inhabi­ tants and the area it inhabits is of interest to the geographer, because the spatial category takes on the function of giving this group its own identity. The element that functions as an identity symbol is often a construct of significance for its history or for other reasons, but that still has an important cultural value. In general, these are built objects that occupy a considerable position in the space and configure it in a major way: places of worship, buildings that symbolize power, sites of community encounter. Sometimes, the functions of an object change over time and, although it does not change in appearance, it becomes a symbol of a culture that is new and different from the past. In other cases, reuse implies a transformation which, however, will have to take the new symbolic values into account27. Consider, for example, abandoned places of work that have been transformed into monuments of industrial archaeology, such as Sardinia’s mining areas. Our interest, in this case, is not in the remaining structures and their architectural and artistic worth, but in the meaning that

23 24 25 26

Caldo, Costantino. “Monumento e simbolo…”: 15–30. Gambino, Roberto. “Ambiguità feconda…”: 141–143. Caldo, Costantino. “Monumento e simbolo…”: 16. Cassi, Laura. “Territorio e armatura identitaria. Forme della natura e della cultura tra valori e valenze”, Patrimonio culturale e paesaggio…: 115–118; Maffei, Daniela. “Identità e paesaggio”, Self-identity. Place identity. Studi sul paesaggio. Carla Gallo Barbisio, dir. Torino: Tirrenia Stampatori, 1999: 46–68; Breakwell, Glynis. “The Identity of Places and Places and Place Identity”, La rappresentazione del paesaggio. Carla Gallo Barbisio, Laura Lettini, Daniela Maffei, dirs. Torino: Tirrenia Stampatori, 1999: 51–61. 27 Caldo, Costantino. “Monumento e simbolo…”: 16–19.

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is attributed to them by society at large, which recognizes their value as a sign of a material culture of the past that belongs to them28. A more in-depth analysis of these elements at times allows them to be better placed in the category of the emblems of “otherness,” given that they are the expression of “other” customers, workers, cultures, and societies. Indeed, as Caldo points out, cultural symbols can also mean the spread and penetration of a culture that does not belong to the place’s social group, but originates from other places and other groups. Moreover, sometimes the current symbolic value of certain elements may be completely different from what it originally had, as a result of new cultural and social motivations29. In Sardinia, many items express the action of the “Other”: signs impressed upon the territory by outsiders but that, over the passage of time and as the inhabitants’ sensitivity changed, took on a different symbolic value, becoming a symbol of identity for the settled communities. One clear example is the existence to this day – clearly perceptible in the territory, language and culture and in various aspects of the island’s life – of numerous elements referable to the four centuries of Iberian presence in Sardinia30. In this sense, Sardinia’s landscape may be identified as a composite identity account, containing the signs of its inhabitants’ identity, interwoven, overlapping, and juxtaposed with the signs that “Others” left in Sardinian territory. Let us consider Cagliari, for example, and try to scrutinize, with careful gaze, its complex historic and cultural inheritance: from the monumental architecture (buildings of power, places of worship, military

28 Nocco, Sebastiana. “Le miniere sarde: da luogo di lavoro a luogo della memoria e dell’identità. Il caso del Sarrabus-Gerrei”, RiMe. Rivista dell’Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea, 3 (2009): 69–91; Nocco, Sebastiana. “Nuove opportunità di sviluppo sostenibile per le aree minerarie dismesse. Il caso del borgo Su Suergiu di Villasalto (CA)”, L’eccidio di Villasalto nel centenario (1906–2006), Giovanni Murgia, ed. Dolianova: Grafica del Parteolla, 2011: 97–113. 29 Caldo, Costantino. “Monumento e simbolo…”: 22–24. 30 Manconi, Francesco. “’De no poderse desmembrar de la Corona de Aragón’: Sardegna e Paesi catalani, un vincolo lungo quattro secoli”, Archivio Sardo. Rivista di Studi storici e sociali, n.s. 1 (1999): 25–47; Martí Sentañes, Esther. “La identidad catalana en Cerdeña”, Sardegna Catalana, Anna Maria Oliva, Olivetta Schena, eds. Barcelona: Institut d’Estudis Catalans, 2014: 229–256.

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and defensive strongholds), to places of daily life (piazzas, markets), and places of work. In many cases, it is to this day possible to recognize the elements of the first nucleus of the city, founded at the initiative of the Pisans in the early thirteenth century. To this nucleus, subsequent rules added new structures, but also reused existing ones, sometimes repurposing their original functions31. Consider for example Torre dell’Elefante, Torre di San Pancrazio, and Torre del Leone – towers built for defensive purposes – which were combined with other types of use over time32. During the fifteenth century, they had become the private residence for the city’s leading officeholders: Torre dell’Elefante housed a prison, but also served as the subvicar’s residence. During the same period, Torre di San Pancrazio was home to the veguer and the castellan, while Torre del Leone was the private residence of the royal procurator33. This was just the first example of reuse, in a process that has continued to their new function in the contemporary era, when the Pisan towers have become one of the destinations preferred by the tourists visiting the city every day. The Capula towers are to this day one of the city’s most important symbols. The multiple functions – fortified stronghold, but also centre of political, administrative, and economic power for the entire island – that characterized Castello over the centuries have made it a special place. Often, Sardinians’ mental picture of it is identified with all of Cagliari (of which it is only a part), which is in fact called Casteddu (“Castello”) in the Sardinian language34. The neighbourhood, like the rest of the city, still presents more or less clear signs of the interventions carried out over the centuries. For example, it is possible to reconstruct the various phases of adjustment of the defensive structures by military engineers, at the service first of the Spanish monarchy and then of the Dukes of Savoy, until the more recent

31 Urban, Maria Bonaria. Cagliari aragonese. Topografia e insediamento. Cagliari: Istituto sui rapporti italo-iberici, 2000: 163. 32 Urban, Maria Bonaria. Cagliari aragonese…: 78–84. 33 Urban, Maria Bonaria. Cagliari aragonese…: 178–180. 34 Zedda Macciò, Isabella. “Spazio reale e spazio ideale”, Storie di Castello. La rocca, il potere, la vita del cuore antico di Cagliari. Cagliari: Lions Club Cagliari Castello, 1995: 133–139.

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construction transformation that has in part erased the fortifications in favour of great avenues and squares35. These transformations are anchored not only in the written archive documentation, but also in the iconography and cartography. The last of these, depending on the case and on who was using the maps, prefers the language and content of the perspective view – illustrating the four city quarters and its chief monuments – or the language of military topography, which privileges the circuit of walls and defensive structures36. Another interesting example is the Madonna di Bonaria shrine, built on the hill by the same name in the early fourteenth century by Catalans preparing to conquer Cagliari. The cult of Nostra Signora di Bonaria was appropriated by the Sardinians, who made her the island’s patron saint37. But examples might be endless … We might examine the history of many other items, from their building to the various intended uses assigned to them from the Middle Ages to the contemporary era, including any current reuse, repurposing, and the transmission of new messages. It will be important to see how the city’s monumental cultural assets, and the “banal” ones of the everyday are laden with symbolic value that has caused them to become “points of strength” on the territory, to which to assign a certain degree of cultural identity38. It will be necessary to identify the processes determining a change of scales of value in a society, and the choice of promoting “weak” territorial elements to the strong status of “cultural assets”. This change of sensitivity 35

Nocco, Sebastiana. “La città che cambia: demolizioni, crolli e ricostruzioni a Cagliari nella seconda metà del Cinquecento”, Mediterraneo e città. Discipline a confronto, Maria Grazia Rosaria Mele, ed. Milano: Franco Angeli, forthcoming: 129–141; Masala, Franco. “La cinta fortificata: le torri e i bastioni”, Cagliari. Quartieri storici. Castello. Tatiana K. Kirova, ed. Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 1985: 14–24. 36 Zedda Macciò, Isabella. “Spazio reale e spazio ideale…”; Nocco, Sebastiana. “Cagliari nella cartografia storica: la realtà in evoluzione di una capitale”, Centri di potere nel Mediterraneo occidentale: dal medioevo alla fine dell’antico regime, Lluis J. Guia Marin, Maria Grazia Rosaria Mele, Giovanni Serreli, eds. Milano: Franco Angeli: 121–130, forthcoming. 37 Meloni, Maria Giuseppina. “Culto dei santi e devozione mariana nella Sardegna catalana: il santuario di Bonaria a Cagliari tra fede e identità”, Sardegna Catalana…: 209–227; Martí Sentañes, Esther. “Arquitectura e identidad catalanas en Cagliari: elementos para nuevas propuestas culturales”, RiMe. Rivista dell’Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea, 18 (2017): 125–156. 38 Caldo, Costantino. “Monumento e simbolo…”: 23.

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leads to conserving today those places from which one once fled (such as places of work, for example), a choice that therefore may be subject to modifications with the passage of time. Identity, in fact, is not to be understood as an unmovable construction, an inheritance to be transmitted unchanged, but as a dynamic, future-oriented reality, and therefore a matter of potential, of opportunity. Local identity must not look to the past alone; it must be a project that looks to the future. For this very reason, in building a shared and dynamic identity project, an essential role is played by the inhabitants and their life styles39. Sometimes, it is the progressive loss of economic and productive significance of the territory/landscape that determines its new dimension as cultural heritage to be conserved40; this is the case with Sardinia’s mining landscape. This is a rather meaningful example, since its genesis is strongly marked by the action of insiders. Today, however, it has become a symbol of identity, obtaining enshrinement as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. This honour prompted the establishment of Parco Geominerario Storico e Ambientale della Sardegna, created with the objective of safeguarding and capitalizing on the scientific, technological, historic, and socio-cultural testimony of the mining work that for around eight thousand years involved both local communities and those from outside the island that followed one another in exploiting the subsoil41. In some areas, extraction activities were long-lasting and important enough to deeply and irreversibly transform the economic and social fabric, and to leave an indelible mark on the territory. In fact, the establishment of mining activity on an industrial scale, in addition to introducing modes of production unknown before that time, brought about major transformations in the territory, with the rapid rise of new articles: the factories and the structures functional to them. 39 Bozza di manifesto per la società dei territorialisti/e (15 novembre 2010, corretta gennaio 2011): 4. 40 Quaini, Massimo. “Attraversare il paesaggio…”: 288. 41 Bulferetti, Luigi. “Le miniere sarde alla metà del secolo XVIII”, Studi storici in onore di Francesco Loddo Canepa, Firenze: Sansoni, 1959: I, 65–86; Le miniere e i minatori della Sardegna. Francesco Manconi dir. Cagliari: Silvana Editoriale, 1986; L’uomo e le miniere in Sardegna, Tatiana Kirova, ed. Cagliari: Della Torre, 1993; Mezzolani, Sandro. Simoncini, Andrea. Storia, paesaggi, architetture delle miniere. Il Parco Geominerario della Sardegna. Nuoro: Archivio Fotografico Sardo, 2001; Nocco, Sebastiana. “Le miniere sarde…”.

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Starting from the second half of the nineteenth century, Sardinian mines boasted cutting-edge systems and precious infrastructure, such as dams, aqueducts, electricity substations, bridges, roads, and railways providing links to nearby ports. A short distance away, at the “mine mouth”, rose the workers’ villages42. Like the mines attached to them, these are an expression of a non-native entrepreneurialism, which impressed its life styles and tastes even in the development of residential models, introducing cultural elements extraneous to the island’s reality. In the workers’ villages situated near the major Italian and European urban areas, these structures were the reflex of those existing in the cities43. For many communities, however, the encounter with modernity took place thanks precisely to the factory or mine. Among these was Sardinia, for the first time in contact with entirely new and extraneous situations that placed the small mining centres at the vanguard in comparison with the rest of the island’s territory, and at times the cities as well. Thus, formal and stylistic aspects typical of cultured architecture between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries find application in the buildings connected with Sardinia’s mining activity – public, residential, or destined for productive functions –, aligning with the trends characterizing the other workers’ villages of the time44. The signs of industrial civilization, precisely for the imposing nature of the works they originated, soon accompanied and overlapped with the other elements of the original landscape, leading to the complete overturning of the territory’s original characteristics and to the birth of a totally artificial landscape45.

42 Mezzolani, Sandro. Simoncini, Andrea. Storia, paesaggi, architetture delle miniere…: 48–59; Lallai, Paolo. “Strade, ferrovie e miniere in Sardegna”, L’uomo e le miniere…: 113–114. 43 Villaggi operai in Italia. La Val Padana e Crespi d’Adda. Torino: Einaudi, 1981; Fontana, Giovanni Luigi. Comunità del lavoro. Città e villaggi operai nel mondo. Venezia: Marsilio, 2013. 44 Mistretta, Pasquale. Lo Monaco, Mario. “Gli habitat minerari in Sardegna”, Bollettino dell’Ente Minerario Sardo, 1974; Saiu Deidda, Anna. “Origine e sviluppo degli insediamenti minerari in Sardegna”, L’uomo e le miniere…: 89–102; Masala, Franco. “Architetture minerarie in Sardegna fra revivals ed eclettismo”, L’uomo e le miniere…: 115–126; Eclettismo e miniere: riflessi europei nell’architettura e nella società sarda tra ‘800 e ‘900: catalogo della mostra, Maria Bonaria Lai, Patricia Olivo, Giuseppina Usai, eds. Cagliari: Soprintendenza Archivistica per la Sardegna, 2004. 45 Zedda Macciò, Isabella. “Le miniere in Sardegna: dall’ambiente naturale al paesaggio minerario”, L’uomo e le miniere…: 79–88.

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The closure of most of Sardinia’s mines, which took place in various phases during the twentieth century, and the consequent distancing of the economic and productive structures, left an imposing inheritance of infrastructures, machines, and buildings that are often part of natural and environmental settings of great scenic beauty. In addition to these are documents and archives that are the precious material testimony of this activity. It also left human values and professional skills that deserve to be conserved, given that they constitute the roots of a generations-long cultural identity to be respected, safeguarded, and transmitted to future generations46, so that a multi-millennium culture and a highly valuable professionalism might not be lost. At the same time, however, there is also the attempt to create new development opportunities for the communities that identify themselves with and are heirs to a mining culture that is still in their DNA47. This is to say that it is necessary to activate “new constructions of meaning on the territory”48 starting from the recovery and exploitation – through reuse – of cultural heritage understood as the vehicle for recovering society’s historic memory with regard to the loss of identity and of a link to the places. The historic and cultural territory thus joins a strategic development project in which cultural assets are “part of action projects”.49 They are founded upon diversity understood as a local response to the global process and as ability to communicate local values and reasons in the global language. This process enables the birth of a new local territorial system whose point of strength lies precisely in enhancing the special characteristics of the places. At the same time it allows the community rooted in the

46 Parco Geominerario Storico e Ambientale della Sardegna, Cagliari: Regione Autonoma della Sardegna-EMSA-Progemisa, 2002: 7–9. 47 “Istituzione del Parco geominerario storico ed ambientale della Sardegna”. Decreto DEC/SCN/999 del 16 ottobre 2001, Gazzetta Ufficiale – Serie Generale – n. 265 del 14 novembre 2001: 28–34: art. 2. 48 Gaddoni, Silvia. “Beni culturali e sistema territoriale locale. Un progetto per la città metropolitana di Bologna”, Geotema, 4 (1996), Geografia e beni culturali, Costantino Caldo, ed.: 97–108. 49 Söderström, Ola. “I beni culturali come risorse sociali di progetti territoriali”, Beni culturali e geografia…: 31–38.

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territory to reconstruct, by its own land, those bonds that modernity has weakened or dissolved50. To conclude, an interesting example of how young Sardinians perceive the landscape was the recent experience of “Premio Alberto Boscolo. Raccontare il Mediterraneo,” a writing competition for middle-school students held by ISEM51. Among the suggested topics, two groups of youths chose to recount a fragment of history of their territory, entrusting the narration to the voice of an old fellow countryman52. But at the same time, they bonded their account to strong elements of the landscape that in both cases were the result of interaction with elements outside the Sardinian people: the church of Santa Maria Navarrese, linked to the legend of the Princess of Navarre, and the Spanish tower of San Giovanni in Siniscola: two stories and two monuments that link Sardinian history and identity to the peoples and cultures of the Mediterranean.

50 Gaddoni, Silvia. “Beni culturali e sistema territoriale locale…”: 97, 102; Dallari, Fiorella. “I beni culturali, elemento di strategia territoriale. Un nuovo progetto geografico”, Geotema, 4 (1996): 89–96; Mautone, Maria. “Il paesaggio tra identità e territorialità”…: 335–338. 51 Premio Alberto Boscolo. Raccontare il Mediterraneo. 9 novembre 2017 http://www. isem.cnr.it/index.php?page=strumenti&id=0&lang=it 52 Montebelli, Stefania. Spagnoli, Luisa. “Note introduttive per una riflessione sulla memoria orale del paesaggio”, Rivista Geografica Italiana, 117 (2010): 869–893.

Andrea Pala Università degli Studi di Cagliari

Figurative continuity and artistic syncretism in the wooden roofs of Romanesque churches in Sardinia

The interior of the church of San Pietro del Crocifisso at Bulzi (Sassari), built starting from the first two decades of the twelfth century and most likely completed in 1200–251, conserves an oaken beam that is the only testimony of the original roof covering2. This long beam – currently anchored in two pieces at the south of the nave (Fig. 1) – was still in place until the first years of the last century, when the engineer Dionigi Scano made it known to scholars, reading and interpreting the red epigraph it still bears:

Fig. 01.  Bulzi (Sassari), Church of San Pietro del Crocifisso. Wooden beam of the thirteenth century covering (Image: Andrea Pala) 1

Coroneo, Roberto. Serra, Renata. Sardegna preromanica e romanica. Milano: Jaca book, 2004: 203; Pala, Andrea. San Pietro del Crocifisso a Bulzi. Architettura e arredi sacro della chiesa romanica. Ghilarza: Iskra edizioni, 2012. 2 See Relazione tecnica: Analisi tecnologiche sul legno di alcune sculture sarde. Sopralluoghi dei giorni 6–8 luglio 2004 (Archivio Dipartimento di Storia Beni Culturali e Territorio, cattedra di Storia dell’Arte Medievale dell’Università degli Studi di Cagliari).

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HIC OPUS FACTUM FUIT […] SUB […] IOHANNES EPISCOPUS AMPURIAE.

The extraordinary importance of Scano’s discovery resides above all in the epigraph’s exegesis, which identifies Iohannes as one of the bishops of the curatoria of Ampurias in the first half of the thirteenth century. This statement would demonstrate a renovation of the roof and an enlargement of the church during the years of the ministry of this prelate from Ampurias3. This might also be the context of the arrival of a wooden group – the Deposition from the Cross – datable to the early thirteenth century and belonging to the building’s Medieval furnishings4, currently kept at the town’s parish house of San Sebastiano. Beyond certain items that are presumably original but not yet properly datable, the status of unicum of the epigraphic bean in Sardinia’s Medieval landscape bears witness to the extreme rarity of the conservation of wooden roofs at contemporary with Romanesque buildings. The first reason for which it was not easy to obtain wooden roofs that may be likened to the arrangement of the most ancient churches might be linked to the frequent roof renovations, connected with the need to enlarge the structure subordinated to worship, or due simply to a structural yielding. All these aspects almost always required a roof renovation as well. Another reason that required restoring the wooden roofs was doubtlessly that of fires, usually not intentional. One example in Medieval Sardinia was the blaze that spread in the former cathedral of Sant’Antioco di Bisarcio in the territory of Ozieri, documented in the fragment of the donation charter renovated and done by Costantino di Sogostos in favour of the same church in the Giudicato of Logudoro since the original charter was destroyed in the fire in that church in Bisarcio: ‘cando arserat sa ecclesia di Guisarchu’5. The destruction caused by flames most likely also caused the temporary transfer of the bishop’s seat from Bisarcio to Ardara as early as 11396. Written attestations documenting the conformation of Medieval roofs are not frequent. Standing out among them are the epigraphs on two bronze door knockers kept today at the Oristano Diocesan Museum but 3 4 5 6

Scano, Dionigi. Storia dell’arte in Sardegna dal XI al XIV secolo. Cagliari-Sassari: Stab. Tipografici Gaetano Montorsi, 1907: 215–216. Pala, Andrea. San Pietro del Crocifisso …: 67. Codex Diplomaticus Sardiniae, ed. Pasquale Tola. Torino: Regio Typographeo, 1861: I, 183–184, doc. IX. Coroneo, Roberto. “Sant’Antioco di Bisarcio (Ozieri): cattedrale ed episcopio”. Medioevo: la Chiesa e il Palazzo (Atti del Convegno internazionale di Studi Parma, 20–24 settembre 2005). Arturo Carlo Quintavalle, ed. Milano: Electa, 2007: 390.

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originally placed on the main doors of that city’s St. Mary’s Cathedral. The two items contain two epigraphic bands with letters in Gothic capitals7; the first reads: AD HONOR(E)M D(E)I (ET) BEATE MARIE (ET) IUDUCIS MARIANI PLACENTINUS NOS FECIT (E)T COPERTURAM MCCXXVIII, in the second: ARCHIEP(ISCOPU)S TROGOTOREUS NOS FECIT (ET) COPERTURA(M) ECCL(ESI)E.

Therefore, the first inscription celebrates the customer, giudice Marianus II de Lacon Gunale, it reports the date of 1228 and one may discern the name of Placentinus who built the church’s bronze shutters and roof. The second inscription, on the other hand, shows the name of Archbishop Torgotorio De Muru, who also commissioned the renovation of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Oristano in the first thirty years of the thirteenth century8. In the specific case, the epigraphic datum, however, does not allow it to be established with certainty whether the thirteenth-century roof had wooden trusses, and does not even provide information as to a probable decoration of the church’s roof in the Medieval period, restored starting in the fourteenth century and already virtually rebuilt between 1729 and 17459. Despite this, this information shows once again, and with certainty, the renovation of the roof of a Romanesque building. We know that these roof restoration episodes did not take place only in long-ago eras, but were repeated down to recent times, as for example in the case of the church of di Santa Maria del Regno in Ardara (Sassari), where, in 1863, a large vault was built in place of the original trusses10. The new structure caused serious structural yielding; it was therefore necessary to dismantle the structure and restore the trussed frame ex novo11, which replaced the old one, testimony of which perhaps remains in a beam currently located on the floor of the south nave. 7

Casini, Tomaso. “Le iscrizioni sarde del Medioevo”, Archivio Storico Sardo, I (1905): 320–321, n. 15. 8 Coroneo, Roberto. “I picchiotti bronzei della cattedrale di Oristano: ‘Placentinus me fecit’”, Le plaisir de l’art du Moyenâge: commande, production et réception de l’oeuvre d’art: mélanges offerts à Xavier Barral I Altet. Paris: Editions A&J Picard, 2012: 572–576. 9 Naitza, Salvatore. Architettura dal tardo ‘600 al classicismo purista. Nuoro: Ilisso, 1992: 70–75, sheet 14. 10 Pala, Andrea. “Architecture et sculpture dans la Sardaigne des XIe-XIIe siècles, interactions entre l’île et la terre ferme dans le cadre de l’art roman dans la Méditerranée occidentale”, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa, XLVIII, 49 (2017): 167–174. 11 Vivanet, Filippo. Terza relazione dell’Ufficio Regionale per La Conservazione dei monumenti della Sardegna. Cagliari: Tip. P. Valdes, 1904: 9.

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1. The surviving materials The written information attests to an ongoing phenomenon of grave loss of Medieval wooden roofs, once an integral part of the architecture that is often still conserved in its bearing and decorative structures in stone material. Added to this, as in the “case studies” just examined, was the lack of certainty on the sure presence of decorations of historical and artistic interest (sculptures and/or paintings) in the wooden framework beneath the roof pitches of specific Sardinian buildings. It is a hypothesis that might prove valid when taking into account the frequent examples outside the island that are also documented in civil residences12. Among the few artistic items that we may deem referable to Medieval Sardinia, whose chronological boundaries may be conventionally traced within the fourteenth century, some fragments held in the Santa Chiara church and monastery in Oristano, located in the city quarter named for them, would be recognizable13. The church perhaps rose on a pre-existing building dedicated to St. Vincent14 but the foundation or re-foundation for St. Clare is documented only after 134315, and was presumably concluded by 1348, the date shown on the funerary slab of Costanza di Saluzzo16 that is the ante quem for the end of a construction phase. But it is not easy to establish when and in what way the Santa Chiara complex was completed in its Medieval facies, including the roof frame; the church was consecrated

12 See Betti, Fabio. “Nuove acquisizioni e aggiornamenti critici sulle mensole lignee quattrocentesche dal Palazzo Caetani”, Il Palazzo Caetani. Cantiere di Studi, ed. Giovanni Pesiri & Pio Francesco Pistilli. Roma: Creia, 183, with previous bibliography. 13 Mele, Maria Grazia. Oristano giudicale. Topografia e insediamento. Cagliari: ETS, 1999: 154. 14 Bullarium Franciscanum sive romanorum Pontificum constitutiones, epistola ac diplomata continens tribus ordini bus Minorum, Clarissarum, et Poenitentium a seraphico patriarcha sancto Francisco institutis concessa ab illorum exordio ad nostra usque tempora, Konrad Eubel, ed. Roma: Typis Sacrae Congregationis de Propaganda Fide, 1898: VI. 162, doc. 320. 15 Codice Diplomatico delle relazioni tra la Santa Sede e la Sardegna, ed. Dionigi Scano. Cagliari: Arti grafiche B.C.T., 1940: I, 323, doc. CDLIX. 16 Tasca, Cecilia. “Le influenze pisane nella produzione epigrafica sarda e catalana del 14 secolo”, Archivio Storico Sardo, 3 (1987): 61.

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only on 10 February 142817, altered by accretions until the 1920s.18. Currently, set in the chancel in the counter-façade are seven wooden ledges put in place during twentieth-century restorations, but dating back to the older building19. Two of them have the appearance of a bovine, in a crouching position with hooves pointing inwardly (Fig. 2). The animals’ horns have not come down to us, but a trace of them remains from the holes at the top of the two specimens. On the two wooden elements there are traces of colour, perhaps ascribable to a period following the first installation of the fourteenth-century roof. In the evanescent traces of colour, one can make out a shield on a red field, replicated in both items.

Fig. 02.  Oristano, Church and Monastery of Santa Chiara. Bovine-shaped Shelf (Image: Andrea Pala).

Two other ledges have a trace of colouring, but the carving is different and bears the figures of two fawns (Fig. 3). These elements are painted on various parts of the body and have large, longitudinal cracks, likely to have been caused by the changing volume of the wood connected with seasoning and with natural microclimatic changes.

17 Zucca, Umberto. “La consacrazione della chiesa di S. Chiara in Oristano da documentazione inedita del monastero”, Biblioteca Francescana Sarda, 1, n. 2, (1987): 270. 18 Zucca, Umberto. “La consacrazione…”, Biblioteca Francescana Sarda, 1, n. 2, (1987): 260, nota 6. 19 Pala, Andrea. Usai, Nicoletta. “L’utilizzo delle nuove tecnologie a servizio della ricerca tradizionale: il caso della chiesa e monastero della chiesa di Santa Chiara a Oristano. Dipinti e sculture lignee medievali”, Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia dell’Università di Cagliari, Nuova serie 26 / 63 (2008): 19–27.

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Fig. 03  Oristano, Church and Monastery of Santa Chiara. Fawn-shaped Shelf (Image: Andrea Pala).

The third pair of wooden shelves has a carving of inwardly pointed leaves (Fig. 4) that leads to the phytomorphic plastic that may be found in architectural sculpture of thirteenth/fourteenth-century southern Sardinia. In the hollow inside both articles, one may see decorations with two faces, depicting respectively a figure with a crown and a female figure, less distinguishable than the first image contained in the more intact ledge. The final surviving ledge reproduces the figure of a man with a hat, in prone position (Fig. 5). In this case, too, one notes clear traces of colour but, unlike the others, certainly referable to a moment subsequent to the making of the articles: two emblems per side may be seen, depicting yellow and red bands that may be likened to the pallets of Aragon. It may be thought that this was part of a couple of ledges, like the earlier ones.

Fig. 04.  Oristano, Church and Monastery of Santa Chiara. “Curved leaf ” Shelf (Image: Andrea Pala).

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Fig. 05.  Oristano, Church and Monastery of Santa Chiara. Anthropomorphic Shelf (Image: Andrea Pala).

All the wooden structural elements just cited have lost their function of supporting the trusses in the same material, which are preserved in fragmentary form in a passageway area beside the convent cloister (Fig. 6). In fact, the six surviving beams which were once part of the disappeared trusses and that served as the roof of the Medieval church, were anchored by iron bolts to the wall in this area, which also preserves three moulded wooden ledges likely to have originated from the spaces of the monastery (Fig. 7).

Fig. 06.  Oristano, Church and Monastery of Santa Chiara. Wooden beam of the fourteenth century covering (Image: Andrea Pala).

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Fig. 07.  Oristano, Church and Monastery of Santa Chiara. Wooden shelves of the Monastery (Image: Andrea Pala).

As early as the nineteenth century, the canonist Giovanni Spano noted the existence of painted panels which – according to him – “are no later than the fifteenth century,” thought to depict both a hooded figure begging for alms for the poor, and a coronation, most likely of a giudice, with the rest of the decorated portion occupied by country scenes20. To date, the actual presence of these paintings has yet to be verified; their only testimony remains that written by Spano, also reported by sister Celestina Pau, a Poor Clare from Oristano, who authored a monograph on the monastery manifesting interest also in the Medieval church’s surviving decorations21. Only in recent years were new arguments proposed, attributing the sculptures to fourteenth-century manufacture, thanks also to comparison with the cycle of paintings accidentally discovered during the latest

20 Spano, Giovanni. Memoria sulla Badia di Bonarcadu. Cagliari: Tip. di A. Alagna, 1870: 32. 21 Pau, Celestina. “Un monastero nella storia della città. Santa Chiara di Oristano nei documenti dell’archivio”, Parte prima 1343–1699, Biblioteca Francescana Sarda, 5, (1994): 47, 215–221.

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restorations of the so-called Chapel of the Crucifix22. The painting merits particular attention also because it reproduces the earliest painted image yet known in Sardinia of what is referred to as the “crocifisso gotico doloroso”23. Staying with the seven wooden ledges, it has been hypothesized that these, too, belong to the “sphere of courtly Gothic,” it thus being thought that the church’s roof was once adorned with depictions referring to the life and activities of the Giudicato, such as hunting activities24, for example, the rules for which are found in the Giudicato of Arborea’s Carta de Logu25. It was thus proposed that the wooden roof be ascribed to a commission from the giudice Marianus IV of Arborea, the successor upon the death of his brother Peter III in 134726, and the monastery’s main benefactor27. The chronological setting of these articles within fourteenth-century sculptural production may be accepted, and the ways of making the sculptural decoration of the ledges may be thought to refer to a culture still linked to the Italian peninsula, as may be attested by the presence of other imported artworks present in the city28. Doubtlessly, in other religious buildings on the territory, the presence may be found of sculptures specially created for wooden roofs, such as for example the case of the ledges placed in the church of the Maddalena in Silì, a few kilometres from Oristano, datable to the mid fourteenth century29. These decorations were part of a more complex architectural structure, a partial memory of which exists thanks only to the archival documentation of last century’s restorations. Among the papers, a 1901 design 22 Pala, Usai. “L’utilizzo delle nuove tecnologie…”. 23 Pala, Andrea. “Il crocifisso ligneo di Nicodemo a Oristano, un modello di iconografia francescana in Sardegna”, IKON- Journal of Iconographic Studies/Časopis za Ikonografske studije, 3 (2010): 130. 24 Cannas, Maria Cristina. “Le rappresentazioni medievali della caccia in Sardegna, comparate agli Ordinamentos de Silvas della Carta De Logu dell’Arborea e altri documenti (parte prima)”, Biblioteca Francescana Sarda, 15 (2013): 202. 25 Carta de Logu dell’Arborea. Nuova edizione critica secondo il manoscritto di Cagliari (BUC 211) con traduzione italiana, Giovanni Lupinu, ed. Oristano: ISTAR, 2010: chap.. LXXXI, LXXXII, LXXXIII, XCV, XXX, CL. 26 Cannas, Maria Cristina. “’Le rappresentazioni medievali…’”: 205. 27 Mele, Giampaolo. Un Manoscritto arborense inedito del Trecento: il codice 1bR del monastero di Santa Chiara di Oristano. Oristano: Editrice S’Alvure, 1985: 24. 28 See Pala, Andrea. “La produzione artistica nel regno di Arborea tra potere giudicale e Ordini mendicanti (XIII–XIV secolo)”, Rime. Rivista dell’Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea, 16/1 (2016): 65–85, with previous bibliography. 29 Roberto, Coroneo. Architettura romanica…: 281, sheet 167.

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by engineer Dionigi Scano emerges, illustrating views and sections of the church; while also reproducing the now-lost trusses with their original painted decoration (Fig. 8), which without a doubt bear similarities to those surviving at Santa Chiara30.

Fig. 08.  Cagliari, chiesa della Maddalena a Silì, a 1901. Church of La Maddalena of Silì, drawing by Dionigi Scano. Detail of the polychrome trusses (Archivio disegni Soprintendenza ABAP Ca e Or, Oristano Silì, chiesa della Maddalena, pos. 50. N. Ordine 2)

In the same drawing, a note in pencil suggests the original placement of the ledges that have today lost their support function, because they are set into the church’s lateral walls. In this case as well, the sources’ silence does not afford a precise chronological reference, and therefore only a formal comparison allows these articles to be likened to those of Santa Chiara – which are, however, of the higher quality. We may state, though, that the figurative repertoire in the Sardinia of these years maintains a certain continuity over time: without a doubt, the workshops of the master wood craftsmen must have been familiar with the models that were “on display” in these churches and that ordinary maintenance most likely almost required replicating. The bond between architectural and wooden sculpture seems to be a solid one, as may also be easily seen from comparisons with the sculptural art of the previous century. See, for example, the decorations done on the corbels, and those in the church of Santa Maria di Tratalias in southern Sardinia, which epigraphic data allow us to date to between 1213 and 30 Pala, Andrea. Usai, Nicoletta. “L’utilizzo delle nuove tecnologie…”: 26

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128231. In the long series of corbels placed on the exterior, and also in the decorations of the surviving liturgical furnishings, the curved leaf motif is repeated insistently.

2. Figurative continuity and artistic syncretism If we may speak of figurative continuity linked to the sculptural tradition of the Italian peninsula in fourteenth-century Sardinia, we may just as easily say that these models were over time transformed and enriched with other sculptural forms that were the result of far broader cultural phenomena, linked to the political and economic dynamics of the western Mediterranean. To have an overview of the artistic development in Sardinian territory during this period, we must take a step back in time – which is to say when, in 1297, Boniface VIII enfeoffed Sardinia and Corsica to James II of Aragon and the island, in the fourteenth century, saw a slow closure of a cycle of artistic civilization marked by Italic presences already linked to the political powers and to the island’s clergy: the trading and cultural routes that had their hubs in Pisa and Genoa were slowly replaced by the Mediterranean ones between Naples, Sardinia, and Barcelona; and the artistic products of Italian gothic were making way for those of Catalan Gothic32. When dealing with the subject of the decorations of Medieval wooden roofs, it is necessary, however, to specify that the historiography is generally interested in the few decorated wooden elements removed from their original location, as in the aforementioned items at Santa Chiara in Oristano. Most of the information on the wooden roofs of Sardinia’s churches in a time frame between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries are included in general texts on Romanesque architecture33. The reasons for this choice 31 Roberto, Coroneo. Architettura romanica…: 197. 32 See Pala, Andrea. “La produzione artistica…”, with previous bibliography. 33 Scano, Dionigi. Storia dell’arte in Sardegna…; Scano, Dionigi. Chiese medievali di Sardegna. Cagliari: Edizioni della Fondazione Il Nuraghe, 1929; Delogu, Raffaello. L’architettura del medioevo in Sardegna. Roma: La libreria dello Stato, 1953; Serra, Renata. La Sardegna. Italia romanica. Milano: Jaca Book, 1988; Coroneo, Roberto. Architettura romanica dalla metà del Mille al primo ‘300. Nuoro: Ilisso, 1993; Coroneo, Roberto. Serra, Renata. Sardegna preromanica…

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vary; they are born mainly from the proper awareness that these architectural devices are not autonomous elements but part of a complex organism like architecture, which was mainly investigated in the construction and enduring aspects consisting of stone material (and in rare cases, brick). The hard conditions of accessing the wooden roofs on site are another obstacle that creates objective difficulties in analyzing them – an analysis normally done several metres from floor level. Recently critical attention has returned to the case of the wooden roof of the Romanesque church of Santa Maria d’Itria34, located in the inhabited centre of Maracalagonis in the province of Cagliari, whose current dedication from the late nineteenth century35 is superimposed upon the more ancient title that traditionally refers to Pope Saint Hilarius36. The building has a façade that bears similarities with other twelfth and thirteenth-century Sardinian churches37, with a wooden-trussed roofing system and low-pitched roof. The roof of the central nave consisted of twenty-five decorated wooden trusses distributed over an area of about thirty-nine square metres, placed forty centimetres apart38. The trusses are topped by a “herringbone” planking and rest upon ledges in the same material, which are also decorated. The lateral naves have a single-pitch wooden roof with no ornamental motifs. The framework of the central nave, on the other hand, presents two different types of trusses that a study prior to this one subdivided into three types, established on the basis of the items’ structure39. The wooden ledges upon which the trusses rest appear not to maintain a structural function any longer, but retain only an aesthetic value. These shelves may be grouped into five general categories, which bring the following together by ornamental motif: cross, notches, geometric, moulded, and zoo-anthropomorphic. Of the forty-nine ledges, eight wooden blocks are highly ruined, to the point that they cannot be inserted into a precise category40. 34 Pala, Andrea. “Il tetto ligneo della chiesa romanica di Santa Maria d’Itria a Maracalagonis: elementi e decori”, Porticum. Revista d’estudios medievals, IV (2012): 31. 35 “Mara Calagonis”, Vittorio, Angius. Città e villaggi della Sardegna dell’Ottocento, 2, Ichnusa- Ozieri, Luciano Carta, ed. Nuoro: Ilisso, 2006: 859. 36 Roberto, Coroneo. Architettura romanica…: 249 sheet 142 37 Nicoletta, Usai. “Contributo allo studio dell’architettura romanica in Sardegna: la chiesa di Nostra Signora d’Itria a Maracalagonis”, ArcheoArte, 2 (2013): 251–252. 38 Pala, Andrea. “Il tetto ligneo della chiesa romanica…”: 31. 39 Pala, Andrea. “Il tetto ligneo della chiesa romanica…”: 31–32. 40 Pala, Andrea. “Il tetto ligneo della chiesa romanica…”: 31–32.

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More than thirty years ago, the singular nature of the wooden ceiling of the church of Santa Maria d’Itria was attributed twelfth-century stylistic features41. More recently, it was associated – by the type of carving of the trusses with simplified motifs – with the Romanesque church of San Giuliano a Selargius, also in Sardinia42. The latter were said to have been “paid for in the thirteenth century”43. Again in this chronological line, the installation of the roof in Maracalagonis would be ascribable to late-thirteenth-century manufacture, and more precisely44, it is deemed contemporary with the church’s arrangement, and pointed to as one of the rare examples of Medieval wooden framework that has come down to our time45. Other essays dedicated to the Mara roof, also placed in the thirteenth century in the protection office’s catalogue cards46, found similarities with decorations present in the wooden framework of the Ussana church, thus underscoring how the way of carving the ancient “roof framework” with geometric motifs reflects a taste present in Sardinia before the arrival of the Aragonese, accepted by them and used today by artisanal carpet weavers and carvers of chairs and chests47. Among the studies, it is generally noted that the church still has rare examples of Romanesque-era wooden roof48. However, the most recent examination – in situ and bibliographic, and of the restoration archive documentation of the Superintendency for the Metropolitan City of Cagliari and the Provinces of Oristano, Medio Campidano, Carbonia-Iglesias, and Ogliastra – yielded often discordant elements that certainly do not clarify the problems related to the nature of the wood, which might be verified only with specific analyses. Moreover, the lack of certain documentary 41 Cherchi Paba, Felice. “Sinnai – Mara – Settimo – Selargius”, Quaderni Storici e Turistici di Sardegna, 17 (1979): 34. 42 Serreli, Giovanni. Concas, Katiuscia, “Nostra Signora D’Itria di Maracalagonis. Un raro esempio di architettura romanica arabeggiante nel Campidano di Cagliari”, Quaderni bolotanesi. Rivista sarda di cultura, 24 (1998): 399. 43 Serra, Renata. La Sardegna…: 345. 44 Serreli, Giovanni. Concas, Katiuscia, “Nostra Signora D’Itria di Maracalagonis: 400. 45 Serreli, Giovanni. “La chiesa di Nostra Signora d’Itria. Maracalagonis”. I gioielli dell’architettura religiosa, Nicoletta Rossi, Stefano Meloni, eds. Dolianova: Edizioni Grafica del Parteolla, 2005: 68, 72. 46 Archivio Catalogo Soprintendenza ABAP per la città metropolitana di Cagliari e le province di Oristano e sud Sardegna, Scheda inventariale dei Beni Storico Artistici NTC (n. cat. Gen.) 2000067855 del 1994. 47 Lilliu, Osvaldo. La chiesa di San Saturnino a Ussana: ricerche e restauri. Quartu Sant’Elena: Amministrazione Provinciale di Cagliari, 1984: 39. 48 Roberto, Coroneo. Architettura romanica …: 249.

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contributions still leaves open the question over the presumed conservation of the building’s roof in the twelfth-century phase. Even a mere comparison with archive photos underscores the important variations at the end of the last century49. The study of other wooden roofing systems present in Sardinia that report epigraphic dating underscores the adoption of a type of carving that might be the result of a repetitiveness of schemes universally acquired by artist, not necessarily patterned from the same template, presumably verifiable in various Sardinian religious buildings, as may be seen for example in the church of Santa Maria Navarrese in Baunei, which adopts an eight-truss roof with a decoration that involves only the ledges, for which certain similarities may be found in the moulded motifs of the church of Santa Maria d’Itria. An inscription in the roof of the Santa Maria Navarrese building that, although incomplete, reports the date 16[…]150, allows the wooden framework (or its renovation) to be attributed to the seventeenth century. The specific case becomes a significant chronological reference that confirms a continued use of carving the elements of the trusses in the churches. It is precisely the epigraphic datum that bears witness to the custom, even in the seventeenth century, of providing religious buildings with decorated wooden roofs, like the church of San Lorenzo in Sanluri. In the building, a carved truss bears the inscription. HOI A II DE DESEMBRE 1683 SE HA RENOVADO ESTA IGLESIA DEL GLORIOSO SAN LORENZO MARTYR / EL IM DEST OBRA ES M(ESTRE) JUAN SERRA DE DICHA VILLA ABITANTE EN LA MESMA […] EL PROCURADOR PEDRO ARIXI / EL PRESENJ ANO DEL 1684 LOS OBREROS DE SAN LORENZO SON EL REVERENDO FRANCISCO LAMPIS Y ANTIGO MOCHI DE AGO.

Examination of the epigraph shows that the master craftsman Juan Serra is credited with the “obra” done in 1683, and not otherwise specified; the inscription on the truss’s beam might lead one to think that the obra consists precisely of renewing the roof and arranging the trusses51. In the roof of the church of San Lorenzo, it is also possible to recognize a series of carved ledges that present anthropomorphic and geometric decorations (Fig. 9).

49 See Pala, Andrea. “Il tetto ligneo della chiesa romanica…”: 37–38. 50 See Pala, Andrea. “Il tetto ligneo della chiesa romanica…”: 37–38. 51 Colli Vignarelli, Francesco. “Chiese e cappelle di Sanluri. Chiesa di San Lorenzo martire”. Sanluri terra ‘e lori, Cagliari: Società Poligrafica Sarda, 1964: 72–73.

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Fig. 09.  Sanluri (Cagliari), Church of San Lorenzo. Wooden shelf (Archivio fotografico Soprintendenza, ABAP Ca e Or, foto n. 35195 del 1989).

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This type of carving appears to have its iconographic roots in the Medieval repertoire, in particular in Sardinia of the late fourteenth century, already permeated by Catalan-Aragonese figurative culture. This writer has already proposed a comparison outside the island between the Sanluri ledge and the wooden barbicans conserved in the Museu Frederic Marés of Barcelona52, datable to around 1400. These eaves, of unknown origin, have volumes and decorations that spread in the mudéjar wooden sculpture in Catalonia starting from the second half of the fourteenth century53. The characteristic shape of the Catalan ledges is defined as “proa de vaixell” and may also be found in the sculptural elements of the Sanluri ledges, in which the same three-lobed geometric decorations obtained in the four corners of the wooden piece may be recognized. The development of decorations from outside the island, and not only Iberian, reworked by native artisans, might have generated a phenomenon of artistic syncretism that could have reappeared in Sardinian carpentry in the subsequent centuries. The persistence of a decorative form that arises in the Middle Ages, such as for example the stylistic cut of the mudéjar carpentry that incorporates elements of Arab culture54, would again be manifested in Sardinia two centuries after its birth in Catalonia. In this regard, it seems plausible to imagine that the artisans replicate a model acquired over the course of generations. Similar considerations may lead by transitivity to a revision of the proposals for the chronological placement of the carpentry work of the roof of the Maracalagonis church, also taking account of the contingent factors that would have made the conservation of a thirteenth-century wooden roof difficult. Wooden roofs were subject over the centuries to alterations of all kinds, which, when added to wood’s natural perishability, did not allow much of the structures in question to survive. Also for the church of Santa Maria d’Itria in Maracalagonis, it appears that time acted in the same manner: the restorations done over the last forty years have preserved a structure perhaps already altered in its original conformation. Some restoration operations have undoubtedly involved the ex novo reintegration of various parts of the roof. These and other 52 Pala, Andrea. “Il tetto ligneo della chiesa romanica…”: 40. 53 Borràs Gualis, Gonzalo. “Barbacanes”, Fons del Museu Frederic Marès/1. Catàleg d’escultura I pintura medievals. Barcelona: Ajuntament de Barcelona, 1991: 96, sheet 19. 54 See Díez Jorge, María Elena. El arte mudéjar: expresion estetica de una convivencia. Granada: Imprenta comercial Montril, 2001.

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renovations have certainly compromised the recognition of the church’s original wooden roof and once again underscore the reasons for which few examples of wooden roofs contemporary with the Medieval arrangement have come down to our day. It is interesting to note that between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Sardinia had a considerable number of artists, called archari, caxers, fabri lignari, and fusters, which bears witness to «fiorente attività dell’intaglio del legno in quelle forme artigianali che servivano a ornare chiese e dimore»55. In the specific case, moreover, it should not be neglected that the fuster Gregori Bonato56, who lived in the appendice of Castello57, in 1557 undertook, with the obrieri of the parish church of Santa Maria (now the Vergine Assunta church) in the village of Marcalagonis, to rebuild the church roof destroyed by a fire58. The destruction took place in 1551 and most likely caused the wooden roof to burn59. During these decades, the villa of Mara went through a period of great ethnographic and economic development: an artist like Michele Cavaro in 1567 restored the altar of Sant’Antonio, and was commissioned the construction of the main altar of the same parish church in llenya y pintura60. It may thus be supposed that in the late sixteenth century, the thriving village of Maracalagonis had the resources needed to commission the renovation of the roof of the church of Santa Maria d’Itria as well. It is equally likely that the Mara customer, whether church or lay, could have had at its disposal labour capable of building a refined frame, such as that still in place, which would have replaced a roof reduced to poor conditions. These last considerations, the formal analysis of the frame, and the examination of the essays and of the archival documents, perhaps allow us to suppose a renovation of the wooden roof of the Maracalagonis church in the years when fusters like Gregorio Bonato operated, which is to say 55 Corda, Mario. Arti e mestieri della Sardegna spagnola. Documenti d’archivio. Cagliari: CUEC, 1987: 53. 56 Archivio di Stato di Cagliari (ASC), Atti notarili legati, Melchiorre De Silva, Vol. 625, f. 623, Cagliari Wednesday 27 October 1557. 57 Di Tucci, Raffaele. “Documenti e notizie per la storia delle arti e delle industrie artistiche in Sardegna dal 1570 al 1620”, Archivio Storico Sardo, 24 (1954): 164. 58 Corda, Mario. Arti e mestieri…: 53–54. 59 Serreli, Giovanni. “Parrocchiale Beata Vergine Assunta. Maracalagonis…”: 84. 60 Aru, Carlo. La pittura sarda nel Rinascimento. I documenti d’archivio, Cagliari: G. Ledda, 1926: 23, doc. 31.

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between the second half of the sixteenth century and the seventeenth century. If this were the case, it should not be ruled out that the presumed reworking of the roof might be patterned on the original wood roof. Other likely interventions could have taken place in the years when the liturgical axis was inverted; further integrations would have occurred down to the end of the last century. Some restoration operations certainly involved the ex novo reintegration of various parts of the roof, like the aforementioned ledges, but also the arrows in the central part of the roof. Over the course of the centuries following the Middle Ages, which we have by convention defined as concluding before the end of the fourteenth century, there is certainly a figurative continuity, an integration of the sculptural plasticity with other motifs originating from different cultural settings; but the shapes themselves also take their distance from naturalistic depiction, becoming geometric-tending, multiform interpretations that were to gain widespread consensus at least through the seventeenth century. Research is tasked with identifying these aspects, too, in the various wooden sculptures of the architectural apparatus in Sardinia, which must still to a large extent be selected and studied, starting from examination of the restoration papers that might yield important information. The renovation of the wooden roof of the church of San Nicola in Ottana is a clear indication of this, for which the yearly report of the Ufficio Regionale per la Conservazione dei Monumenti della Sardegna (01 July 1899–30 June 1900) states that «restauri praticati nel tempio si riducono in massima parte al riattamento del tetto»61. The critical problem arises precisely as to the degree of restoration done during those years and in subsequent ones, especially when the sculptural elements conserve formal traits that lead precisely to the most ancient sculpture (fig. 10), as takes place in numerous Sardinian buildings. Unlike other episodes, such as that of the church of San Pietro in Zuri, built by Anselmo da Como in 1291 and rebuilt after the construction of the Tirso dam in the 1920s62 with an operation of anastylosis that ended

61 Vivanet, Filippo. Sesta, settima ed ottava relazione dell’Ufficio Regionale per La Conservazione dei monumenti della Sardegna. Cagliari: Tip. Lit. Commerciale, 1901: 51. 62 Aru, Carlo. San Pietro di Zuri. Reggio Emilia: Officine Grafiche Reggiane, 1926. Cfr. edizione anastatica, Aru, Carlo, San Pietro di Zuri. Introduzione di Donatella Salvi & Anna Luisa Sanna. Ghilarza: Iskra, 2006.

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with the approval of the new roof that marked the end of the works63, they provide certainty of the complete elimination of the old trusses and of the presumed decorated ledges that perhaps once existed.

Fig. 10.  Ottana (NU), Church of Saint Nicholas. Zoomorphic shelf (Image: Andrea Pala).

63 Vivanet, Filippo. Terza relazione dell’Ufficio…: 10.

Jorge Lobos Collaboration: Mirko Mellino Università degli Studi di Sassari

“E pluribus unum. The Sardinian identity profile from the Middle Ages to Contemporaneity”. Cultural architecture of the Sardinian territory

This research project applies the theory of “cultural architecture”1 to the Sardinian territory to discover, through its contemporary architecture, some identity values on the island of Sardinia, a way of visualizing the works that crystallize the worldview of Sardinia. The analysis of these constructed works, we believe, can contribute to a better understanding of the architectural process on the island and the possible development of Sardinian architecture in the 21st century.For this work, we determined two general restrictions: 1. We delimited a determined time of study, from the 1900 to our days (20th century and so far the 21st century) that is the period in which the architectural work is professionalized and intellectualized. 2. We delimited the island of Sardinia in spatial terms. We divide it into four geographic areas or cultural provinces: Sassari, Nuoro, Oristano and Cagliari. These constrictions allowed us to discover constants and differences when comparing specific and concrete areas in time and geographical space. The method also considers working with a specific group of people belonging to the culture being studied. We decided to work with the Sardinian architecture students of the University of Sassari UNISS who, in some way, are the summary of the Sardinian historical cultural process and they defined the four geographical sub-areas and the 10 project categories, based on their own personal experience, intuition and architectural training. 1

Olivares, Juan Carlos. “Pensamiento y obra. Entrevista al arqto. Jorge Lobos”. Revista de Arquitectura, 8/9 (1997): 38–51.

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1. Introduction The theory of cultural architecture was developed in the south of Chile by the professional group that I led in the 90s. It arises from the work in wood architecture that takes place in the archipelago of Chiloé and its ability to represent the worldview of the inhabitants of that area of Chile2. Both the island of Sardinia and the island and archipelago of Chiloé have some similar characteristics: the dimension of both islands, the situation of separation with the continent and the administration of the central country, an inhabitant shaped by centuries of a particular history, a strong sense of identity, among others. (Photo 1)

1. – Archipielago of Chiloe (Image: Gen Munoz)

The similarity between both islands suggests the possibility of applying the method in Sardinia, because it also represents a limited geographical context, which allows us to define a determined architectural sample. 2

Lobos, Jorge. Guia de Arquitectura y Territotio del Archipielago de Chiloè. Sevilla: Junta de Andalucia, 2006.

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The project was originally created with the intention of giving life to a study that recounts the link between architecture and Sardinian culture, examining some works: Architectural, Urban, Archaeological, Artistic and cultural events, which have an impact in what has been built and placed in the Sardinian territory in the historical period that goes from the early 1900s up to the present, designed and built by architects and artists, not necessarily Sardinians. A premise that we use in this work is the timid correlation between the identity process of Sardinia versus its contemporary architecture (20th-21st centuries). It is a relationship that does not overturn all its potential in architecture or at least is not visible at a first glance. Our objective is to identify the elements that contribute to this phenomenon and its possible future projection, as well as to verify if this first look is correct. For this, we have identified a universe of 200 works of architecture of the last 100 years and we have dissected them trying to identify their essential elements from a cultural perspective.

2. – Course at work (Image: Mirko Mellino)

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To this end, it was essential to identify that Sardinia is not homogeneous, that it has at least four sub-regions or cultural provinces that coexist. We divide this study into these four regions: Sassari, Nuoro, Oristano and Cagliari. This division has served to classify and catalogue the works and, through this process, discover the values in which these constructed works of art are founded.

2. Methodology The methodology and work system that we used was to study the concept of cultural architecture and see how it can be applied in the case of Sardinia for the architecture of the XX–XXI centuries For this purpose, we divided the work into several phases: ■ Study of cultural architecture ■ Application for a defined period of time from the XX century and early XXI century in a defined territory: Sardinia ■ Research through students of the Architecture Master Course of the University of Sassari (40 Sardinian students) who discover in their own territories the architecture that is considered outstanding by the inhabitants and experts. ■ Act according to the division of four cultural regions of Sardinia: Sassari, Nuoro, Oristano and Cagliari. ■ Create a classification of projects according to architectural categories: ○ Iconic ○ Landscape ○ Context ○ Materials ■ Urban Space ■ Public Buildings ○ Social ○ New foundation ○ Form and typology ■ Recovery

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■ Submit this classification to Sardinia’s expert discussion (Cagliari February 2017) ■ Submit this classification to discussion to people who do not know Sardinia (May 2017) ■ Look again and coordinate information with these new internal and external views. ■ Draw conclusions This method allowed us to look at the Sardinian architecture from an internal, undisclosed perspective, and observe its particularities and delicate implicit and explicit balances, as they are given to the inhabitants of Sardinia, as a natural fact, beyond discussion, because they have always been there. When we ask Sardinian architecture students to show us the most relevant projects of their places of origin, we have encouraged them to see their own environment built with new eyes, with the eyes of foreigners. Thus, we have discovered, through their view, the constants and cultural differences in contemporary Sardinian life.

3. Concept of Culture The origins of modern cultural anthropology are found in ethnological research at the end of the nineteenth century, when scholars such as Edward Burnett Tylor3 and James Frazer, reworking the material collected by missionaries or explorers across the globe, began investigating common models for different cultures. It was Tylor, in his work Primitive Culture (1871), who proposed the first anthropological definition of the term culture, based on the concept of “acculturation” used by J. W. Powell4. According to Tylor, in so far as culture understands “all man’s abilities and forms of behaviour acquired as a member of a society” the study of these abilities would have allowed “to go back to the laws of thought and human action”. 3 4

Taylor, Edward B. Primitive Culture. London : J. Murray, 1871 Powell, John Wesley. “On limitations to the use of some anthropologic data”, First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 1879–1880. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1881: 73–83

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In the first phase of development of the discipline, cultural anthropologists also began to reflect on the phenomenon of “culture” as such: despite their efforts, however, they failed (at least until recently) to prevent to a general theory. Until the 1940s, American cultural anthropology was influenced by F. Boas’s school, anthropologist and ethnologist, who demonstrated that culture is independent of racial factors and has inherent characteristics for each ethnic group and is therefore a product independent of every populace. Boas intended to study the cultural aspects of the various societies from a different point of view than the one adopted by Tylor and the so-called evolutionists: while they used an evolutionary scale to classify cultures in a hierarchical way, Boas assumed that every society revealed, according to its own history and the context in which it develops, also its own culture. The cultural landscape of a given society, according to this approach, has to be analysed by intense field research, aimed at the meticulous study of every aspect of social life that reveals a culture in its specificity. In Italy, until the second half of the twentieth century, there was no true tradition of cultural anthropology or social anthropology; the tout court anthropology coincided with physical anthropology. They coexisted with physical anthropology, the ethnology, almost exclusively interested in non-European societies, and the history of popular traditions, concentrated almost entirely on Italian folklore (especially meridional): in this latter field, the studies of Ernesto De Martino5 on the southern Puglia and Sardinian peasant world and Friedman’s research are distinguished. There are hundreds of definitions of culture. The humanistic meaning of culture refers to the possession of more or less specialised knowledge acquired through study. It is synonymous with knowledge: for ex., the cultured man. The term culture is also known with the addition of attributes to particular periods, e.g. Medieval, Renaissance and so on. Or specific places: Latin, Greek or Sardinian culture.

5

See some of the most recent editions of Ernesto De Martino’s, works: Sud e magia. Introduzione di Umberto Galimberti. Milano: Feltrinelli, 2017; La terra del rimorso. Contributo a una storia religiosa del Sud. Milano: Il saggiatore, 2015; Etnografia del tarantismo pugliese. I materiali della spedizione nel Salento del 1959. Amalia Signorelli, Valerio Panza, eds. Lecce: Argo, 2011.

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In order to analyze the relationship between Sardinian architecture and culture, the concept of culture has been deepened6 by taking into account three basic definitions of culture7: Culture as an ideal superior concept, to which we are all entitled. Culture as a set of peculiar distinctive elements of a people that preserves them and identifies them, culture as a heritage to be transmitted. Culture as a universal concept, are the elements of culture present in each culture and which join them, called universal cultural: Quasi tutti i miei colleghi sono d’accordo nel ritenere che la “cultura” sia il concetto fondamentale della disciplina – anche se non riusciamo a metterci d’accordo su come definirla. La cultura sono le idee? Sono i modelli? Sono le azioni? Sono le conseguenze di queste azioni, cioè gli oggetti o i comportamenti? Oppure è tutto questo, il rapporto tra tutti questi elementi, o soltanto fra alcuni di questi? È stupefacente come non ne abbiamo alcuna idea, o meglio, ne abbiamo a centinaia!8 “Almost all my colleagues agree that the “culture” is the fundamental concept of the discipline, although we cannot agree on how to define it. Are culture ideas? Are the models? Are the actions? Are the consequences of these actions, i. e. the objects or behaviours? Or is it all this, the relationship between all these elements, or just some of them? It is as astonishing as we have no idea, or rather, we have hundreds of them!”.

4. Cultural Architecture The concept of cultural architecture was developed in Chiloé by working groups that I led, in the 90s, and published for the first time in the Journal of the University of Chile in 1996 and then deepened and developed in “Towards a Cultural Architecture” 6

7 8

Bueno, Gustavo. El mito de la cultura. Ensayo de una filosofía materialista de la cultura. Barcelona: Prensa Ibérica, 1996; San Martin Sala, Javier, Teoría de la cultura, Madrid: Editorial Síntesis S.A., 1999. Savater, Fernando. Diccionario filosófico. Barcelona: Planeta, 1995; Savater, Fernando. “Universalismo  e identidades / civilizacion versus cultura”, Talk unpublished in Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid (ETSAM), 22nd February, 1999: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=3yrtgQw-rwA. 18th January 2018; Savater, Fernando. Sobrevivir, Editorial Ariel S.A. Barcelona, 2001, 3° edición. Lobos, Jorge. Hacia Una Arquitectura Cultural. Roma: Ed. Aracne, 2012. Mintz, Sidney. “Culture: an anthropological view,” Yale Review, XVII/4 (1982): 499–512.

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The concept of Cultural Architecture is the formulation of a theoretical body, which makes the particular human values of each territory upfront, in the production of the architectural project. The evolution of contemporary thought based on the anthropology of culture (late 19th century), the philosophy of culture (first half of the 20th. century), the first globalization (second half of the 20th century) and the second globalization (Early 21st century), has had only lukewarm attempts to make a correlation with the theory of architecture, although there are numerous works of architects that account for these processes in different parts of the world. In general, the theory of the twentieth century architecture has been based on the first globalization, and failed to consciously and massively include the various cultural processes in the dimension proposed by contemporary philosophy. The architecture of the 21st century is already more aware of these processes and has begun to include them as part of the architectural project, with proposals such as Architecture and Human Rights. Architecture and behaviour, architecture as cultural activism, etc. This, on the one side, opens up new roles for the architect’s profession, with new skills as architect and cultural activist, architect and democratizing subject of urban decisions, architect as social peace builder, etc. Within this logic of the contemporary theory of architecture, we ask ourselves how is the architecture of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century inserted in Sardinia? How does it react in relation to the Sardinian cultural process?

5. Sardinian cultural identity. The four (sub) cultural regions in Sardinia The territory of Sardinia has witnessed for centuries a flow of different populations that gave rise to some differences whether anthropological, linguistic and cultural, the different provinces can be considered as a direct continuation9 of the contamination of the different cultures of the 9

Atlante delle culture costruttive della Sardegna. 1. Le geografie dell’abitare. Gian Giacomo Ortu, Antonello Sanna, eds. Roma: Tipografia del Genio Civile, 2009 (I  manuali del recupero dei centri storici della Sardegna, I); Architetture delle

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entire Mediterranean basin, and the orographic and geological differences of the insular territories, have conditioned the techniques of construction and settlement of the city in Sardinia, the architectures that have resulted from this process show some differences between them, and from the first matter of the construction, examples are the use of raw earth bricks in Campidano and the south-central Sardinia, the stone walls extended to the whole island, thanks to the surprising lithic variety spread throughout the territory of Sardinia. The different materials have influenced both the morphology and the type of construction, the raw brick, for example, has affected the morphology of the house, the brick as a building module has rationalized the construction of housing in the south, with walls rectilinear and quadrangular environments, in addition to the regularity and stability of the block allowed to make thinnest walls; on the contrary, the typical stone constructions of the mountain areas have, instead, a thicker masonry, due to the irregularity of the newly delineated material and the construction techniques of the “bag” type with the application of mortar and earth, straw, or dry mortar. In addition to the constructive restrictions dictated by the construction material, cultural and social differences are added that influence the construction of houses and the urban aggregate. From the houses with courtyard of the south, true and own houses-factories in which the fusion between the productive function of house is absolute, until the cells of simpler houses of the centre and the north, in which the common outer space becomes a centre for sharing and for collaboration among the inhabitants, the houses are minimal and essential homes, the inner courtyard almost disappears and the houses are placed side by side in front of the street. In the territory of Barbagia, where the space dedicated to the street is a minimum space, it is a surface subtracted from the slope of the hill where the high mountain houses developed on several levels are anchored. This has been chosen to maintain the subdivision of the territorial areas of the provinces of Sassari, Nuoro, Oristano and Cagliari, as a model of analysis and monitoring of the evolution and development of the construction and housing techniques of the territory of Sardinia. colline e degli altipiani centro.meridionali. Carlo Atzeni, ed. Roma: Tipografia del Genio Civile, 2009 (I manuali del recupero dei centri storici della Sardegna, IV/1); Architetture delle colline e degli altipiani settentrionali. Domenico Bianco, Fausto Cuboni, eds. Roma: Tipografia del Genio Civile, 2009 (I manuali del recupero dei centri storici della Sardegna, IV/2).

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6. Sardinian architecture and culture To help the understanding of the phenomenon that links Sardinian architecture and culture, we developed a classification of the 200 works, according to the cataloguing that the Sardinian actors themselves, UNISS architecture students, decided freely and democratically. The resulting categories of this discussion process are: 6.1 Iconic Projects that represent the highest expression in architecture of the area in which they are located, are an inescapable reference of their province and include a high level of artistic-architectural quality, which makes them indispensable to the understanding of the contemporary Sardinia. In some way, the Sardinian Cosmo vision is enhanced in constructed works. 6.2 Landscape Architecture projects that are related to landscape or landscape projects. They can be projects of very different scale or dimension from works within the natural landscape to large-scale landscape works. This classification was a matter of discussion due to the scope of the dimensions of the projects; from summer houses on the north coast of the island, such as Arzachena’s house, to large-scale projects that treat the landscape on a large scale, such as those of Maria Lai in Ulassai, Nuoro area. 6.3 Context Works in urban contexts that base their proposal on the relationship with the surrounding environment. They are works that give an account of a built civility, an idea of a city as a high exponent of human life. Examples of this category are the pergola village in Orani, of Nivola or the building of Fernando Clemente in Sassari.

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6.4 Materials Works that structure their architectural proposal in the choice of materials as a way to link their process of theoretical construction to the Sardinian environment. The materials are, in this case, the main reason for the work. 6.5 Urban Space They are projects in urban contexts and public dimension. Urban projects of public or private creation, but of public use. 6.6 Public Buildings Buildings of public use and social equipment, mainly of governmental construction. It is government work that seeks better living conditions for the population. Work clearly planned from the State or from the governmental level. 6.7 Social Public construction buildings for social housing or popular housing. It constitutes a great part of the city and a great concern of governments in the mid-twentieth century. It shows a period of architecture where the concern for the quality of life of citizens acquired prominence, as well as the construction of systems and architectural methods that made these proposals possible and more efficient. 6.8 New Foundation A very particular phenomenon in Sardinia are the cities of foundation or cities of administrative creation, designed and built from the State. These cities were created under the Mussolini regime and constitute one of the utopias of the architecture of the early twentieth century. To build

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an ideal city, a city from its origin, a city that demonstrates the knowledge of the profession and the benefits of this knowledge for humanity. These cities constitute an intellectualization and simplification of the multiple complexity of the urban and social phenomenon, in some way they are a formal rationalization of this human phenomenon; Fertilia, Carbonia and Arborea. 6.9 Form and typology Works that seek in the architectural typology its connection with the Sardinian environment, in general they recover historical typologies or they somehow remember some element of Sardinian life. Example: the three Nuraghe house in the area of Oristano. 6.10 Recovery Historical reconstruction works that recover the past through the valuation of what has been built. They have great social significance, being works that are identified with a historical value, a value of continuity of the social tradition. Finally and after reviewing that the basic material of the project was correctly presented with enough drawings, photographs and plans, we analysed and decanted the following number of projects in the ten architectural categories and according to the four geographical zones: Sardinian cultural architecture CG Cagliari

NR Nuoro

OR Oristano

SS Sassari

Total

Iconic

3

5

4

4

16

Context

5

–

4

6

15

Public Buildings

4

10

3

3

20

Form and tipology

2

3

5

14

24

Materials

2

3

5

9

19

New Foundation

2

–

2

3

7

Landscape

2

7

8

7

24

177

Cultural architecture of the Sardinian territory CG Cagliari

NR Nuoro

OR Oristano

SS Sassari

Total

Recovery

10

4

2

–

16

Social

6

4

3

10

23

Urban Space

2

7

3

4

16

TOTAL

38

43

39

60

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7. Iconic projects Within these categories we have paid special attention to the so-called iconic projects that in some way represent the highest and most architectural expression that crystallizes in the built Sardinian vision of the world. These projects are unavoidable when trying to define the Sardinian culture from a professional architectural perspective, but also have collective consensus, since the participants of the process, the 40 Sardinian students, have selected them for personal appreciations, discussions with their group of work, consensus and not always linked only to professional reasons, but also to emotional elements or simply intuition. At this point, the symbolic relevance that the inhabitants assign is important, as well as its referential value and the emotional connection of the inhabitants with the work, for this reason several popular festivals appeared, which modify the urban and the rules that civility is given implicitly in everyday life. These are works that obey to mark temporary citizens landmarks and that are kept, as much, in the memory of the citizens as in the physical space of the city. These projects are: SS (Sassari) Discesa dei Candelieri (Descent of the Candleholders) Scala del Cabirol (Stairway of Cabirol) Lungomare di Alghero (Alghero’s Seafront) Parco Lu Grannaddu, Castelsardo (Lu Grannaddu Park) Collina di Castelsardo (Hill of Castelsardo)

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3. – Descent of Candelieri (Image: http://www.bequalia.com/)

NU (Nuoro) Museo a cielo aperto “Maria Lai”, Ulassai (Open-air Museum “Maria Lai”) Legarsi alla Montagna, Ulassai (Bind to the Mountain) I murales di Orgosolo (Orgosolo’s Murals) Nivola Museum, Orani Piazza Sebastiano Satta e MAN, Nuoro (San Sebastiano Square and MAN (Museo d’Arte Provincia di Nuoro: Museum of Arts province of Nuoro) Redentore, Nuoro (Redemptor)

4. – Legarsi a la montagna in Ullassai (Image: Maria Lai)

Cultural architecture of the Sardinian territory

OR (Oristano) Penisola del Sinis (Sinis Peninsula) The Sartiglia of Oristano Il pozzo di Santa Cristina, Paulilatino (The well of Santa Cristina ) Civic Archaeological Museum

5. – Sinis Peninsula (Image: http://www.photofletzer.com/SARDEGNA/05.html)

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CG (Cagliari) Polo Museale Casa Zapata, Barumini (Museum Centre “Zapata House”, Bastione di Saint Remy, Cagliari (Bastion of Saint Remy) Festa di Sant’Efisio (Feast of Sant’ Efisio) Sistema minerario del Sulcis (Sulcis mining system) The final discussion of the process is centred on these iconographic projects of each cultural province. At this point, there were many collective and group discussions because the method forces us to reach consensus on which are these works that ‘represent us all’. Once these works were chosen, the discussion focused on which are the characteristics that identify them and make them worthy of this iconic condition and what is the uniqueness that they give to their cultural province compared to the total of Sardinia. The most relevant characteristics revealed in this process of uniting architecture and culture in Sardinia are: SS landscape and tourism NU landscape and art OR landscape and archaeology CG Landscape and mining These characteristics of the most symbolic projects and of some relevant projects of the other nine categories, stimulate us to define certain values that have been established in the territory. The leading one of them, and a constant to all the projects, is the relationship with the Sardinian natural landscape, a transversal condition to all the relevant works. However, the four zones present particularities that feed and qualify the diversity within the homogeneity of Sardinia, qualify the relationship with the landscape and characterize it with the delicate differences that we mentioned in the introduction Sassari. The relationship is between landscape and tourism, especially on the north coast of Sardinia with housing projects of high architectural value, although being private works it was difficult to locate them in the iconographic category such as, for example, the “house for holidays in Arzachena”, of great architectural quality and extraordinary architectural synthesis.

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On the other hand, the province of Sassari, is not absent of interesting urban areas aesthetically highlighted and of historical value as Castelsardo and Alghero, but that have turned to a tourist vocation, like the rest of the northern area of Sardinia. Nuoro. It is characterized by its relationship between landscape and art, with great artists that transcend the Sardinian and national borders, such as Maria Lai and Costantino Nivola. In this cultural province, the relevance of these characters has given an imprint and a hallmark to urban development with several interventions in their cities and territory, and a clear relationship between landscape and art, especially in Maria Lai. The cultural province of Nuoro also contains three museums of great artistic value, MAN, Maria Lai open museum and Nivola museum. They demonstrate the importance of art in the life and development of a community. Oristano. Its relationship is between landscape and archaeology with works like Penisola del Sinis or Il pozzo di Santa Cristina di Paulilatino, two of the most beautiful archaeological interventions recovered from the island of Sardinia, and even the Nuraghe di Barumini, on the boundary between the provinces of Cagliari and Oristano, can be considered part of this archaeological intensity. This Nuraghe is one of the best preserved and restored, with great visual impact and evocative quality. Cagliari. It is characterized by its relationship between landscape and mining, with works such as the Sistema minerario del Sulcis and other works classified in the landscape category as “laveria mineraria di Cala Domestica” or “Laveria Lamarmora” “Miniera di Monteponi” or “Porto Flavia” and the industrial zone in Cagliari. Also the province of Cagliari acquires its cultural imprint through the historical centre of the city itself, with works of enormous artistic value such as; Bastione di Saint Remy or the “Torre dell’elefante”. However, the large number of works related to mining that sometimes radically affect the landscape can mark the future development of Cagliari, with a kind of industrial mining archaeology. These interventions have an enormous potential to be recovered in the future for different purposes to the productive ones of their origin.

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8. Conclusions The method of cultural architecture, has allowed us to discover constants in the Sardinian architecture, mainly the work and omnipresent relationship with the natural landscape, always present from the territorial planning to the building architecture. The environment, as a substantial value to Sardinian life, horizontally crosses all its variations and subtle differences. These differences are produced by what we can call cultural provinces. It has been interesting to discover how each one of them has qualified the relationship with the landscape, in a different way: Sassari: tourism landscape Nuoro: landscape and art Oristano: landscape and archaeology Cagliari: landscape and mining All these components, in their summation and overlap, build the Sardinian architectural identity, and represent the Sardinian cultural process crystallized in what has been built. We must remember that the works defined as iconographic have, for the most part, a high level of architectural quality. It is necessary to mention that these works were chosen by the students in a democratic and free way, where the architectural quality of the work was only one of the elements to consider. However, there is a great leap of quality between the so-called iconographic works and the rest of the classification. Sardinia maintains works of professional and artistic quality very unequal and even unbalanced, which cloud the power of representation of the great cultural values that the Sardinian culture possesses; that is, in many of the occasions we do not see at the same level the Sardinian cultural process and the architectural quality of the works that represent it. Here, there is a “gap”, breach or space not used in the Sardinian work of contemporary architecture that, sometimes, distances it from the cultural values that Sardinia sustains. This intellectual space or “gap” could encourage new architectural manifestations that account for it and focus on the search for narrowing or shortening this gap.

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This could account for a new architectural option, as it was developed in the first half of the 20th. Century in Finland with Alvaar Alto or in the second half of the 20th Century in Portugal with Alvaro Siza, both deeply linked to local values in balance with a universal ideal. This possible architecture of the future, should consider the maintenance of the cultural constants of Sardinia: the human life in relation to the landscape and the environment, with its adjectives, when possible and pertinent, with the particularities of each cultural province within the island. But this is not an individual decision of one or a couple of architects, it must be a collective process of mature decisions and cultural strategies. The work in the Sardinian universities in the training of architecture students worried about these elements, would allow to discover, in the near future and through the new generations, artistic expressions that consolidate and represent the Sardinian Cosmo vision of the world, with greater quality and clarity, translated and crystallized in its architecture.

María Andrea Tapia – Horacio Casal Universidad Nacional de Río Negro

Architecture and globalisation in Sardinia. The construction of the identity in Contemporary Sardinia, through Architecture

The series of reflections that are presented below, on the reading of a construction of a Sardinian identity through architecture as a constructed physical object and as a project, that is, as the desired image of a city, refers to a precise period of time which is the one that corresponds to the process of globalization, considering as a starting point (arguable) the fall of the Berlin Wall. In this study, architecture is understood as defined by Umberto Eco in his book The Absent Structure, as a cultural production, capable of meaning and being interpreted through semiotic instruments1. In this way we understand the architecture, physical object anchored in the territory, as the aesthetic materialization of ideological ethics. The period, in which this dialectical relationship between constructed form and ideological ethics was revealed, was under the mandate of the so-called Soru board, a period that goes from 2004 to 2008. In this sense, this regional government has put the architecture and especially in the landscape, the predominant role in the construction of an image of a contemporary Sardinia, putting the tradition in value through the recognition of the patrimony, but also introducing strategies of global development, to recover, historical values of the culture, updating and adding new ones, that can position the island in the international concert of global cities. In this way, architecture is presented as a symbolic instrument and the landscape as an identity builder. These strategic operations from the policy of the regional state, marked a turning point, pretending a new modernity on the island, with the

1

Eco, Umberto. La Estructura Ausente. Barcelona: Ed Lumen, 1986: 252.

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introduction of new formal and typological repertoires at the object level and establishing a new awareness of the Landscape as Identity Patrimony of the Island. These reflections also have another particularity, which is the figure of the foreigner, a foreign researcher, who observes the territory without prejudices or preconceptions, which is not part of the local culture and this means an advantage, on the one hand, that of being able to build a look that puts natural distance to the object of study, not in a temporal sense, like the one needed to build history, but because of the strangeness of the object itself and, on the other hand, this same strangeness could mean at the moment of making the interpretations that lead us to the construction of criticism, a negative factor since it could trigger misinterpretations. And for this reason, we apologize.

1.  Globalisation – Politics – Architecture At the beginning of the process of globalization and the exacerbation of the processes of neoliberal economies, architecture was the physical element that had the greatest impact in the cities that we now call global, architecture became an identity element of large multinational companies, directional centers, malls, etc., were created. Different building types that show, the sliding of the concept of “citizens” to “consumers”, contaminating in this way also, public investment, through programs that took care of culture, especially museums, theatres, institutional buildings, etc., as objects of consumption. Cities, during this process, become containers2 of objects to be consumed by the tourist and therefore they must be presented as desirable objects, with their own characteristics, but above all with global characteristics that give a sense of everyday life, security.

2

To deepen on this concept of the city as a container, the article of Tapia, Maria Andrea.“La ciudad como Stimmungslandschaft”, Revista 47 al fondo, 16 (2005) could be consulted.

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En estos últimos años se ha asistido a la construcción de símbolos arquitectónicos que deben por fuerza, atendiendo a la globalización, atender a una escala extraterritorial, global. Es decir a una escala abstracta virtual que tiene que ver con la construcción de valores globales (Bauman 1999) impuesto y absorbidos de algún modo por el local3.

The project and construction of emblematic buildings in contemporary cities is not an isolated event, it is a strategy to be able to generate growth and development after decades of abandonment in the cities that pretend to be considered global and to be proposed as business headquarters. These operations are part of a territorial urban project that is not external to the policy, but is supported by it. El urbanismo nació y se desarrolló como disciplina práctica de intervención sobre el territorio, para ordenarlo con el fin de organizar el funcionamiento de la ciudad y el acceso a los bienes y servicios colectivos de sus habitantes y sus usuarios. Pero también expresó desde sus inicios una vocación de transformación social, de mejorar la calidad de vida de las poblaciones más necesitadas, de reducir desigualdades4.

The process of globalisation, from the theoretical positioning, of Saskya Sassen and Zygmund Bauman, is understood as a process that is developed from top to bottom thanks to new technologies, especially that of the mass media and the distribution of information in real time, transforming the ways of life and above all the construction of value. The preponderant and desired values in globalization are time and mobility, the latter to be used, enjoyed, needs the flattening of different local realities, building in the imaginary what is called “Global City”. This Global City is built on a stratum of real city, using the occupation of historical elements as a strategy, emptying them of content, trivializing or flattening their meaning, producing the effect called “McDonaldization” of culture. Before this process, some cities, unprepared, with the expectation of growth and economic improvement, have been subjected to this process without reflecting on the material consequences that should support cities as part of a sustainability framework. Many of them have gone into default for having carried out urban transformations without considering the city 3 4

Tapia, Maria Andrea. “Construyendo Indicios”, Rev digital Corazonada, 8 (AbrilJunio 2015): 17–27: 21. Montaner, Josep. Muxi, Zaida. Arquitectura y Política. Barcelona: Ed. GG España, 2015.

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as a whole. The case of Seville ’92, is a very interesting case study to confront the case of Barcelona ’92. Same country, same historical time, but completely different development strategies, one, the first, based on a possible real estate speculation, tinged with needs of urban growth and development, and the second based on what is called citizen urbanism, which recovers, reinforces and develops neighbourhood potential5. Now, how are these global cities? What characterizes them? Global cities are characterized by fragmentation, by a partition that was enacted by the modern movement, but which is currently leading to a liberal exacerbation, that is, residency is sharply divided from the introduction of new modes to live in private, closed neighborhoods where belonging to the same social stratum according to economic income presupposes the sharing of ethical and moral values. The directional centers that are presented through icon architectures, large rapid mobility infrastructures, shopping centers or malls as pseudo public spaces, and spaces for cultural and sports consumption, all of them related through a network of flows that leaves below, pockets of poverty, degraded historic centers, etc. What are the conditions to becomee a Global City? In our case, how is Globalization used to insert, not just a city, but an island in the concert of global cities?

2. Identity and construction of the symbolic value of architecture in the Sardinia of Globalisation. 2004–2008 Government of Renato Soru ‘Per Berlinguer e Mattone, la identità di un popolo si costruisce, si invoca, secondo le circonstanze e con significati differenti’ (‘According to Berlinguer and Mattone, the identity of a people is built and invoked, depending on the circumstances and with different meanings)6.

5 6

Tapia, Maria Andrea. “Cultura y evento en la ciudad Contemporánea” PhD Dissertation, Università degli Studi di Sassari. a.a. 2009. Marrocu, Luciano. Bachis, Francesco. Deplano, Valeria. La Sardegna Contemporanea. Roma: Donzelli, 2015: 16.

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According to the aforementioned authors, the Sardinian identity can be considered a construction of otherness with the continent and as a way to build autonomy and independence. This is what happened during the Government of Renato Soru, in a systematic and planned way from the disciplines of architecture and planning, but without knowing, perhaps, that it was somehow recovering, strengthening and creating new identity values through the construction of a material culture. From the beginning, it showed a strong interest in architecture and planning, paying attention to what was happening in other Mediterranean countries, which were betting on the global model, detected speculation and anthrop pressure on the coast through real estate speculation, what years later, would contribute to the economic crisis in Europe, on the one hand, and the architecture symbol of globalization that made cities more attractive to generate a tertiary economy, based on tourism and services. Having these two realities, the actions of the Soru Board focus on two operations that seem opposed, but in reality, they complement each other to position the island as a competitive global space without losing the Sardinian identity. These operations are the enactment of the Salva Costas Law, until the Regional Landscape Plan and the recovery, construction of Milestones, through emblematic projects linked to culture, of Architects belonging to the Star System, were implemented.

3. The Regional Landscape Plan and the Architecture The Regional Landscape Plan and the Salva Costas Law, as a first preventive measure, in front of the effects of globalization, characterized by the excessive consumption of territory, especially places of environmental and landscape value, (for example, the excessive development of seasonal habitat structures on the Spanish coast), is signed in November 2004. The Salva Costas Law, prohibits construction on the 2-kilometer fault of the marine coast, giving rise to a process that starts with a work commissioned to both universities of survey, recognition, cataloguing and analysis of the natural and anthrop resources of the island.

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This work ends with the drafting of the Regional Landscape Plan that safeguards the identity heritage of the island as well as putting it into value through its detection, mapping and cataloguing. This work is complemented with the development of the Itaca Project, where municipal, provincial technicians are trained to interpret the plan, and technical support is given to the municipalities to develop their urban plans in coherence with the Regional Landscape Plan. This Plan introduces new concepts about the landscape and the project, about the territory and planning, and is the first time that an instrument is constructed not only interpretive of the territory but as a guide for the actions on it, on a concept of territorial network, of complex system. This meant, at the political level at first, a great controversy because the construction of anything on the coast was forbidden, that is to say it was forbidden to speculate with the most precious asset that the island has, its façade to the sea, of an almost unique beauty in the Mediterranean, incorporating into the catalogue of patrimonial goods, that landscape that up to now was not felt as identity or own. It should be noted that the Sardinian coast at a territorial level, associated with the Sardinian identity and economy, were not considered such, until the 60s, when the exploitation of them began with tourist activities, land of little value, since they were infertile, dead lands that did not serve for any type of exploitation, therefore, they were not valued as an image of a local culture. The Regional Landscape Plan puts into value, from the cataloguing of constructed and natural goods, an endless of elements that begin to be visible, protected and put into value. From ecclesiastical constructions, nuragic ruins, “stazzu”7, to secular trees, private beaches, landscape images. This operation valued the tangible and intangible heritage of the island and integrated the coast and the land into a single project. Also building the bases for a regulation that would allow the territory to be managed in a sustainable way from a point of view that was not only economic but also cultural and as well as a sign of identity.

7

Stazzu, precarious housing of the shepherds, especially present in the Gallura region, built of stone and wood. This typology is not only protected, but taken as a model for building construction in that area, so as not to upset the landscape with exogenous forms.

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This instrument was not and is not understood by the foreigner and sometimes not by the locals who see on the coasts the possibility of generating capital gain, through the real estate speculation, but it is one of the most important instruments for the construction of the knowledge and the preservation of the value of the Landscape as a unique non-renewable resource in the island.

4. The global architecture in Sardinia The architecture of globalization, which is defined in this way because it is the author of the 10 most important figures in the world architecture scene, recognized by the Pritzker Prizes and called STAR SYSTEM, is present in all major capitals and cities that have hosted international events or have wanted to change their faces to belong to that network of global cities that are often the headquarters of large multinational companies. Is there a global architecture in Sardinia? The answer is yes, and not only occurs in the period of the Soru Board, which is the one that is being developed in this article, but starts years earlier with the production of architectural objects that introduce new programs such as the Aldo Rossi’s Terranova Shopping Centre, or the Michelucci Theater or the Archaeological Museum (2002) of Maciocco, all of them built in the city of Olbia, by municipal management, that is to say, from the municipality they had the intuition, for what was happening in the rest of the European cities, that the architecture could modify and recover cities that in the previous decades had been left to their fate. But as architectural operations, they still did not meet the standards to be pieces of globalization, that is, they were still local productions. These contemporary architectures were developed more quietly and through the selection of local architects, that is to say, from the island or internationally renowned, but Italian. The architecture that positions the island in the international discourse is the one that will be developed from a series of contests and direct commissions organized by the Region under the government of Renato Soru. Architects such as Zaha Hadid, Herzog and de Meuron, Koolhaas, Paulo

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Mendes da Rocha, etc. disembark in the island, becoming the epicenter of the Global architecture movement. The first big event was the International contest for Betile, “Museo Mediterraneo dell’Arte Nuragica e dell’Arte Contemporanea” (2006) that went out to contest with the desire and the firm purpose of being the generator of an urban transformation of the city of Cagliari, its metropolitan area and the rest of the island. The context, the existing, is the area called Sant’Elia, old fishermen’s neighbourhood that was developed with housing for social use, which today is in a state of degrade. The response to this physical and social reality and to the imperatives of the program is manifested in different ways through 9 proposals, selected by the jury. All of them, proposals of great visual impact, appealing to the image and to the simulation. Simulation that does not allow seeing the real context, proposing a simulation of a city. The city and its history are cancelled, which in the case of this museum, which must contain the cultural history of Sardinia in one of its most important and transcendent aspects that is the Nuragic art, is a great contradiction. Contemporaneity phagocytes history, trivializes and removes all kinds of referents, Nuragic art and its special type of construction is empty of content, ironized, in some of the proposals, in such a way that it cannot be interpreted. The Betile Museum8 of Zaha Hadid, the student’s house of Paulo Mendes da Rocha, the conversion of the Sant’Elia neighborhood, of Koolhaas, the reconversion of the Carbonia Iglesias mine complex of Herzog and de Meuron, become not built Icons but that allowed to generate in the global imaginary the belonging of this island to the system. These projects, not built, kept Sardinia in the international concert of cities-regions, supported not only by the specialized press but also by newspapers and a magazine of common consumption. On the other hand, almost parallel, in 2002 the first architecture school was created at the University of Sassari in the north of the island and two years later the school of architecture of the University of Cagliari, which under this Board, met their years of greater splendor, for the economic 8

On Betile museum and the Sardinian identity see Gallinari, Luciano. “Il museo Bètile di Cagliari e un fallito tentativo di costruzione dell’identità sarda”, Memoria y Milenio III. Europa – America. Museo, Archivos y Bibliotecas para la historia de la Ciencia. Congreso Internacional (Buenos Aires, 19–20 luglio 2010), Buenos Aires: FEPAI, 2010.

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support that allowed figures of international transcendence to occupy their classrooms. This operation was also completed with an event of international scale, the organization of the Fest’Arch where the figures of global reach of the architecture discussed the role and evolution of the profession on the island, together with the new teaching teams of both universities, the student body and the common citizen. All this in the context of the recovery of the building structures of the old tobacco company called Mani­fat­ tura Tabacchi. This event was held for three consecutive days, organized by Stefano Boeri, at that time Editor of Domus magazine, one of the most influential magazines in the construction of Western architectural culture. Potrà sembrare audace realizzare un Festival di Architettura in Sardegna. Sarà sorprendente scoprire come la Sardegna, che già ospita un gruppo di opere eccellenti di architettura moderna, è oggi avviata a diventare uno degli snodi internazionali dell’architettura contemporanea9

These events that happened for three years, seem to be forgotten, and have left no traces about the local culture and, in reality, this is not real. Beyond having planned through the projects a possible imagined and desired contemporary Island, it left as a tangible product an architectural guide edited by Domus, recognising the production of contemporary architecture as cultural objects that mark the local, insular identity, as well as also project experimentations on the territory and strategies to create the city. One of the examples built was the operation of the Maddalena, which cannot be analyzed unless it is contextualizing its real situation. La Maddalena, is an island in the north of Sardinia that was for years NATO’s military base. During the period under study, it disappeared, leaving a significant economic gap, since part of the island’s civil population based its economy on the services provided to the military base. The planning strategy is to reconvert it to host a major international event, the headquarters of the G8, in 2009. A building project on the island under the direction of Stefano Boeri was launched. It should be the great

9

Romeo, Guido. “L’isola della conoscenza”. Il Sole 24 ore, 28 giugno 2007. 02 January 2018 . It may seem bold to organise a Festival of Architecture in Sardinia. It will be surprising to discover how Sardinia, which already houses a group of excellent works of modern architecture, is now set to become one of the international hubs of contemporary architecture.

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event signed by Silvio Berlusconi and Guido Bertolaso, it is a story that began in 2007, when at the level of the National government it was decided after the transfer of the military bases to develop the summit meeting of the G8 on the island of La Maddalena with the attempt to launch the economy of the small archipelago through tourism. With the fall of the centre-left government at the national level, the council decides to continue with the project, although times are short and the work is carried out. The project covers 27,000 m2, and thus the event should become the port of the maxi yacht that sail the Mediterranean. This operation which was not well seen or received in Sardinia, since it is gestated by the national government, is frustrated when the G8 is transferred to the Aquila Region after the earthquake. Needless to say, this operation did not obtain the expected results, not only it did not contribute to the economic take-off, but after the event it does not have functions or functional programs to develop, becoming an obsolete structure without cultural anchorage on the island. Closed this parenthesis that is at the limit of the temporal cut, it returns to the actions that were building a contemporary identity through planning and architecture. This process left on the table a great production of projects that were not only for buildings, like the aforementioned, but a great production of ideas that recognizing the landscape and patrimonial value of the island were awarded in different competitions with international juries. One of them was the International Competition of Ideas for the Maritime Coast of Sardinia, which for the first time calls for competition several beaches in the total of the perimeter of the island with a clear landscape conception and sustainability requirement that haven’t been discussed yet in the decisional areas. Although most of the projects have not been built, these actions have allowed Sardinian, Italian and foreign architects to propose and construct the territory from a vision, directed in cultural terms, towards the conjunction of traditional identity values with the inclusion of new programs and images belonging to the global system. These valued architectures are surveyed and catalogued in the work developed by INAR (National Institute of Architecture) in Sardinia.

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5. Final thoughts To conclude, it can be said that architecture, as a cultural production, is an element of the construction of identity, and a material part of it. That conditions the identity, keeping the past as present, the present as a possible future and the future as an incomplete project, possible to be transformed by the present and the past. There is no architecture without power to represent, be it political, economic, cultural, religious or any other type of power that the future holds. The period we deal with, brief in temporal terms, is dense in content of a cultural nature, and identity. The promulgation of the “Salva Coste” law and the Regional Landscape Plan, put the island of Sardinia at the forefront, in terms of planning and awareness and knowledge of its own cultural and identity baggage. It is not only an instrument of protection but also a proposal that, based on the recognition of the coastal value of its territory, as a resource that allows the development of service economies, safeguards this intangible good for future generations. The proactive and projective nature of the plan, has in its ideological base the emergence of the past in respect of the place, through projects that can look to the future but without forgetting where they are and what is the history that the territory conceals. As for the architecture, it can be said that the non-construction of these projects has been a fortune as they were proposed in parallel to the development of the Regional Landscape Plan, therefore they did not have the material, with the patrimonial catalogue of the territory nor the cultural knowledge that emanates from it. To show this conceptual error, we have the Artillery Building of Stefano Boeri, with construction and maintenance costs that could cause the default of a small city, if it should be maintained by it, but also with a language and image totally remote to the local reality. Speaking in semiotic terms, as presented at the beginning of this article, the architecture to build identity and cultural values must ​​ be able to be interpreted by the user, the citizen, which does not mean that languages ​​and architectural elements known must be used, repetitive, or existing, but must start from elements that may have some kind of anchorage in the local culture. The Bètile project, the first prize awarded to Zaha Hadid’s proposal, stands as a coral formation on the edge of the sea, without reference to its context or content, it is the work itself that becomes content, without

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a continent. That is, without local or cultural references, referring only to itself and to the values of globalization, creating a pseudo local culture, anchored in the imaginary of the visitor. The lack of conceptualization of the city, is visible once the prize was awarded, this means that the museum as a new building is not able to resolve the contradiction that produces with the environment in which it is positioned. To solve this problem, Rem Koolhaas (OMA) is invited to the University of Cagliari and the Polytechnic of Milan to carry out a project workshop with the objective of responding to the area in question. This is the demonstration that the buildings projected in the global logic do not have local references and to guarantee their good insertion from the cultural point of view and with symbolic value they must respond in some way to the immediate context, and to a larger-scale urban planning. Can the possibility of getting rid of semantics, history and culture, which is made possible by the new graphic languages, by the new forms that can be produced from the insertion of new technological tools, build or contribute to the construction of a Sardinian identity? It would be believed not possible. But it could be possible that, by contrast, that is, from the recognition of the global functioning as a provocateur to return to look at the Sardinian architecture, history and culture in search of elements that, reinterpreted, could build a contemporary language. On the other hand, a didactic device is presented, if desired, to reflect, discuss, construct and spread elements that contribute to the construction of a local-global identity that is the Fest’Arch, a mediation and local training device, on the part of the Region, supervised by Stefano Boeri, in an attempt to position architecture and planning as an important issue to be known and interpreted by the community. It is not by chance that the journalistic media have maintained during these years attentive to both the spread of the Plan and the product of the design competitions of the star architects. The first meeting brought together Koolhaas, Herzog and de Meuron, Paulo Mendes da Rocha, Zaha Hadid and other architects of international and national renown, to discuss and reflect on the Landscape, under the slogan “Scrivere il Paesaggio” (Writing the Landscape), that of Sardinia. A series of reflections and suggestions are installed in the disciplinary imaginary first and then in that of ordinary people. In this way Sardinia became the epicenter of world architecture, a working office, of inventiveness, of intelligence, of ideas, in a factory of creativity, to look at the relationship between architecture, landscape, society, and politics.

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Three political actions, the Regional Landscape Plan, the construction of Global Milestones, and the Fest’Arch are the materialization of a vision of Contemporary Island, deeply rooted in its cultural and landscape heritage, capable of belonging to the concert of cities, global regions, but without losing their cultural identity, updating their heritage values through the recognition and enhancement of their resources.