The Multicultural Cagliari of 1500

1. Illustration of the historic Calaris with the walls surrounding the districts of Castello and the Marina which overlooks the port, left Stampace, right Villanova. Photo vistanet.it

"The Lapola or Bagnaria (Marina) was an accessory of the Castle of Cagliari, and was the seafaring district in which the complicated port organization was located. There were the warehouses, the customs offices, the meter, the pilot book, while, near the two churches of San Leonardo and Santa Lucia, were to rise the buildings and homes of the workers, employed for the services of the port. [..] That nucleus of houses, of warehouses, of factories constituting the district of the port, quickly extended towards east to collect those Catalans of Bonaria who could not find place in the village of the Castle [..] In the Aragonese period the Lapola was in full efficiency of transformation and expansion.The numerous Catalan, Gaetan, and Neapolitan merchants, who in the early years of the Aragonese rule had established the shops and houses in the Castle, tended to move to the Liapola which, secured by the new fortifications, offered them excellent guarantees, while proximity to the port facilitated trade-related operations.The Liapola completed in the sixteenth century that transformation that gave rise to the most important district of the city, after the Castle."

Dionigi Scano (Sanluri, 23 February 1867 - Cagliari, 16 November 1949), architect, essayist and politician, described in 1922 the district of La Marina in the centuries of transit between the Pisan and Aragonese periods, based on his historical research.

2. view of the city of Cagliari from the surrounding countryside. Author: M.Louis Enault, Morizot Libraire Editeur (Paris), 1863. Historical Archives of the Municipality of Cagliari

The municipality of the Catalan - Aragonese Cagliari was born from the privilege called "Coeterum" of 25 August 1327, although having as its foundation the Barcelonan law, soon assumed its own physiognomy. The oldest documents preserved in the Historical Archives of the Municipality of Cagliari date back to the period of Catalan-Aragonese domination. Nothing is preserved of the documentation produced during the previous Pisan rule; probably the archival material was destroyed at the hands of the Aragonese when in 1326 they took the Castle of Cagliari definitively subtracting it from Pisan control.

Even before the Pisans, during the judicial period, the city had a completely different appearance: the capital of the Judicate of Cagliari was Santa Igia, which the most recent studies identify in the area of Stampace and Sant'Avendrace, protected by a wall and the Castle of San Michele, and equipped with a lagoon port that overlooked the Scafa (it is estimated that its population is around 10,000-15,000 inhabitants). From the historical sources it is clear that the port district became between 1500 and 1800 the most populous and lively part of the city: founded by the Pisans in the thirteenth century as an area for warehouses and housing of port workers, under the Castel di Castro, the latter political, religious and military heart. But following the Spanish modernization of the city walls and sticks (no longer existing today, except for a portion of the Bastion of Monserrato, in Viale Regina Margherita) was flooded by a multitude of people, whose contribution was fundamental for the increase of economic wealth of the coastal city.

3. Inside view of Cagliari with color representation of people; in the background are recognizable the city walls. Historical Archives of the Municipality of Cagliari

The main widening of the Lapola district (Marina) was the Port square, in front of the pier of Sant'Elmo; the Conce street and the Osteria street developed in the current Via Roma; inside the suburb the main carriageable was Carrer de Barcelona, Today Via Barcellona, in addition to the ancient streets of San Leonardo (Via Ludovico Baylle), Moras (Via Napoli) and Sant'Eulalia; the Costa road, in the upper part of the district, served as a link between the districts Stampace and Villanova: today it is called Via Giuseppe Manno.

The descendants of the Catalans who built the fortified citadel on the hill of Bonaria in 1324, also settled near La Marina which was then enlarged eastwards, up to the current Viale Regina Margherita. In the sabaud era, under the House of Savoy, La Marina was busy and inhabited by traders of Ligurian, Spanish, French, Neapolitan, Sicilian, Livornese, German, English. Some of the most important families of the city were themselves of non Sardinian origin, such as the Amat, of Catalan descent, but present for centuries in the island, or the Asquer, arrived from Liguria in the first half of 1600. Many others had come from the Sardinian hinterland.

4. the historic village today, with the palaces of Via Roma in the foreground overlooking the Maritime Station of Porto Pontile of Sanity. At the center of the Marina stands the dome of the church of Sant'Antonio Abate, with entrance in Via Manno, flanked by the smaller church of the Holy Sepulchre. Behind them stands the Bastion of the Balice, of the Castello district that "protects" the University of Cagliari, founded in 1626 with the name of "Universitas Studiorum Caralitana"; behind her the Elephant Tower; on the far left a portion of the Bastion of Santa Croce. On the top right, clear from the obfuscation of other buildings, the facade and the dome of the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta and Santa Cecilia.

sources: siusa.archivi.beniculturali.it - sardegnadigitallibrary.it - storiadicase.jimdofree.com