[edit]
Main article: History of Cagliari
For a chronological guide, see Timeline of Cagliari.
Legend of the founding of Cagliari[edit]
The legend, narrated by the Latin writer Gaius Julius Solinus, says that Caralis was founded by Aristaeus, son of the god Apollo and the nymph Cyrene. Aristaeus introduced hunting and agriculture to Sardinia, reconciled the indigenous populations who were fighting among themselves and founded the city of Caralis, over which he later reigned.
Early history[edit]
The Cagliari area has been inhabited since the Neolithic. It occupies a favourable position between the sea and a fertile plain and is surrounded by two marshes (which provides defence against attacks from the inland). There are high mountains nearby, to which people could evacuate if the settlement had to be given up. Relics of prehistoric inhabitants were found in the hill of Monte Claro (Monte Claro culture) and in Cape Sant'Elia (several domus de janas).
Monte Claro culture pottery
Karalitan ship owners and traders, mosaic in Ostia Antica
Karaly (Punic: 𐤊𐤓𐤋‬𐤉, krly) was established around the 8th/7th century BC as one of a string of Phoenician colonies in Sardinia, including Tharros. The etymology of the toponym is unknown. It almost certainly does not come from the Phoenician language, but it has some similarities with other Sardinian or Asia Minor toponyms. Its founding is linked to its position along communication routes with Africa as well as to its excellent port. The Phoenician settlement was located in the Stagno di Santa Gilla, west of the present centre of Cagliari. This was also the site of the Roman Portus Scipio, and when Arab pirates raided the area in the 8th century it became the refuge for people fleeing from the city. Other Phoenician settlements have been found at Cape Sant'Elia.
In the late 6th century BC Carthage took control of part of Sardinia, and Cagliari grew substantially under its domination, as testified by the large Tuvixeddu necropolis and other remains. Cagliari was a fortified settlement in what is now the modern Marina quarter, with an annexed holy area in the modern Stampace.
Necropolis of Tuvixeddu
Is Centu Scalas ("a hundred steps"), the Roman amphitheatre of Cagliari
Sardinia and Cagliari came under Roman rule in 238 BC, shortly after the First Punic War, when the Romans defeated the Carthaginians. No mention of it is found on the occasion of the Roman conquest of the island but, during the Second Punic War, Caralis was the headquarters of the praetor, Titus Manlius Torquatus, whence he conducted his operations against Hampsicora and the Carthaginians. At other times it was also the Romans' chief naval station on the island and the residence of its praetor.
The Romans built a new settlement east of the old Punic city, the vicus munitus Caralis (i.e. the fortified community of Caralis) mentioned by Varro Atacinus. The two urban agglomerations merged gradually during the second century BC; to this process is perhaps attributable the plural name Carales.
Florus calls it the urbs urbium or capital of Sardinia. He represents it as taken and severely punished by Gracchus, but this statement is wholly at variance with Livy's account of the wars of Gracchus, in Sardinia, according to which the cities were faithful to Rome, and the revolt was confined to the mountain tribes. In the Civil War between Caesar and Pompey, the citizens of Caralis were the first to declare in favor of the former, an example soon followed by the other cities of Sardinia; and Caesar himself touched there with his fleet on his return from Africa. A few years later, when Sardinia fell into the hands of Menas, the lieutenant of Sextus Pompeius, Caralis was the only city which offered any resistance, but was taken after a short siege.
Cagliari continued to be regarded as the capital of the island under the Roman Empire, and though it did not become a colony, obtained the status of municipium.
Remains of Roman public buildings were found to the west of Marina in Piazza del Carmine. There was an area of ordinary housing near the modern Via Roma, and richer houses on the slopes of the Marina distinct. The amphitheatre is located to the west of the Castello.
A Christian community is attested in Cagliari at least as early as the 3rd century, and by the end of that century the city had a Christian bishop. In the middle decades of the 4th century bishop Lucifer of Cagliari was exiled because of his opposition to the sentence against Athanasius of Alexandria at the Synod of Milan. He was banished to the desert of Thebais by the emperor Constantius II.
Claudian describes the ancient city of Karalis as extending to a considerable length towards the promontory or headland, the projection of which sheltered its port.
A few decades before the fall of the Western Roman Empire Cagliari fell, together with the rest of Sardinia, into the hands of the Vandals, an East Germanic people, but appears to have retained its importance throughout the Middle Ages.
Judicate of Cagliari[edit]
Main article: Judicate of Cagliari
Griffin and Pegasus pluteo, Byzantine Middle Ages. National Archaeological Museum of Cagliari.
Subsequently, ruled by the Byzantine Empire, apart from a short occupation (551–552) by the Ostrogoths during the Gothic War, Cagliari became the capital of a gradually independent Judicate (from Latin Iudex). This state was born around 1020 and was overthrown by the Republic of Pisa in 1258.
Due to the overlap of buildings since the year 800 B.C., and the scarcity of archeological and historical informations, it was believed that the population moved to more inland areas of the territory, along the lagoon, in a city called Santa Ilia or Santa Igia (modern San Gilla) and it was believed that the ancient Roman and Byzantine Caralis had been abandoned because it was too exposed to attacks by Moorish pirates coming from north Africa and Spain. Recent studies have instead hypothesized that the capital of the Giudicato, Santa Igia, was located around the road that it directed towards Sassari, today called Corso Vittorio Emanuele II (in the Sardinian language: Su Brugu, "the borough"), although there are not yet archeological confirmations, particularly of the Cathedral and the Judex Palace, destroyed after the Pisan conquest. The Judicate of Cagliari comprised a large area of the Campidano plain, the Sulcis-Iglesiente and the mountain region of Ogliastra.
11th to 13th century[edit]
Saint Peter of the Fishermen church, 12th century. One of the few survived buildings of Santa Igia.
During the 11th century, the Republic of Pisa began to extend its political influence over the Judgedom of Cagliari. Pisa and the maritime republic of Genoa had a keen interest in Sardinia because it was a perfect strategic base for controlling the commercial routes between Italy and North Africa.
In 1215 the Pisan Lamberto Visconti, husband of Elena of Gallura, forced the judikessa Benedetta of Cagliari to give him the mount located east of Santa Igia. Pisan merchants established there a new fortified city, Castel di Castro, the ancestor of the modern city of Cagliari.
In 1258, after the defeat of William III, the last king of Cagliari, the Pisans and their Sardinian allies (Arborea, Gallura and Logudoro) destroyed the old capital of Santa Igia. The Judgedom of Cagliari was then divided into three parts: the northeast third went to Gallura; the central portion was incorporated into Arborea; Sulcis and Iglesiente, on the southwest, were given to the Pisan della Gherardesca family, while the Republic of Pisa maintained control over its colony of Castel di Castro.
Elephant's Tower
Some of the fortifications that still surround the current district of Castello were built by the Pisans, including the two remaining white limestone towers (early 14th century) designed by the architect Giovanni Capula. Together with the district of Castello, Castel di Castro comprised the districts of Marina (which included the port), and later Stampace [it] and Villanova. Marina and Stampace were guarded by walls, in contrast to Villanova, which was mostly home to peasants.
14th to 17th centuries[edit]
Main article: Kingdom of Sardinia
View of Cagliari from Civitates orbis terrarium (1572) by Georg Braun
In the second decade of the 14th century the Crown of Aragon conquered Sardinia after a series of battles against the Pisans. During the siege of Castel di Castro (1324–1326), the Aragonese, led by Alfonso IV of Aragon, built a stronghold on a more southern hill, that of Bonaria.
When the fortified city was finally conquered by the Aragonese army, Castel di Castro (Castell de Càller or simply Càller in Catalan) became the administrative capital of the newborn Kingdom of Sardinia, one of the many kingdoms forming the Crown of Aragon, which later came under the rule of the Spanish Empire. After the expulsion of the Tuscans, the Castello district was repopulated by the Aragonese settlers of Bonaria while the indigenous population was, as in the past, concentrated in Stampace and Villanova.
Interior view of the Royal Palace of Cagliari.
The kings of Sardinia, who were also the kings of Aragon and later the kings of Spain, ruled the island as part of a wider Mediterranean empire. In Cagliari, their authority was exercised by a viceroy, the king's appointed representative, who resided in the Royal Palace of Cagliari, the official seat of government during the Aragonese and Spanish periods.
In the 16th century the fortifications of the city were strengthened with the construction of the bastions and the rights and benefits of the Aragonese were extended to all citizens. The intellectual life was relatively lively and in the early years of the 17th century the university was founded.
18th century[edit]
In 1718, after a brief rule by the Habsburgs, Cagliari and Sardinia came under the House of Savoy. As rulers of Sardinia, the Savoys took the title of kings of the Sardinian kingdom. During the Savoyard Era, until 1848, the institutions of the Sardinian kingdom remained unchanged, but with the "Perfect Fusion" in that year, all the possessions of the House of Savoy House, comprising Savoy, Nice (now part of France), Piedmont and Liguria, were merged into a unitary state. Although Sardinian by name, the kingdom had its parliament in Turin, where the Savoys resided, and its members were mainly aristocrats from Piedmont or the mainland.
In the late 18th century during the French Revolutionary Wars France tried to conquer Cagliari because of its strategic role in the Mediterranean sea (Expédition de Sardaigne). A French army landed on Poetto beach and advanced towards Cagliari, but the French were defeated by Sardinians who had decided to defend themselves against the revolutionary army. The people of Cagliari hoped to receive some concession from the Savoys in return for their defence of the town. For example, aristocrats from Cagliari asked for a Sardinian representative in the parliament of the kingdom. When the Savoyards refused any concession to the Sardinians, the inhabitants of Cagliari rose up against them and expelled all the representatives of the kingdom along with the Piedmontese rulers. This insurgence is celebrated in Cagliari during Sa die de sa Sardigna ("The day of Sardinia") on the last weekend of April. However, the Savoys regained control of the town after a brief period of autonomous rule.
Modern age[edit]
Triumphal arch King Umberto I, better known as Bastione Saint Remy
The population by the 1840s had reached 29,000. Starting in the 1870s, in the wake of the unification of Italy, the city experienced a century of rapid growth. Numerous buildings combined influences from Art Nouveau together with the traditional Sardinian taste for floral decoration; an example is the white marble City Hall near the port. Many buildings were erected by the end of the 19th century during the term of office of mayor Ottone Bacaredda. In 1905 he had to face up to the a violent, bloody revolt against the exorbitant cost of living, stoked by his political opponents and which caused a number of victims and extensive material damage. After various other ups and downs, and following another resignation, he was returned to office between 1911 and 1917. Ottone Bacaredda died in his modest house in Via San Giovanni, on 26 December 1921,
During the Second World War Cagliari was heavily bombed by the Allies in February 1943. In order to escape from the danger of bombardments and difficult living conditions, many people were evacuated from the city into the countryside. In total the victims of the bombings were more than 2000 and about 80% of the buildings were damaged. The city received the Gold Medal of Military Valour.
After the Italian armistice with the Allies in September 1943, the German Army took control of Cagliari and the island, but soon retreated peacefully in order to reinforce their positions in mainland Italy. The American Army then took control of Cagliari. Airports near the city (Elmas, Monserrato, Decimomannu, currently a NATO airbase) were used by Allied aircraft to fly to North Africa or mainland Italy and Sicily.
After the war, the population of Cagliari grew again and many apartment blocks and recreational areas were erected in new residential districts.
Coats of Arms of Cagliari[edit]
13th century
From the 14th to 17th century
From the 18th century to the present
