Sardinia

Sardinia (pronounced /sɑrˈdɪnɪə/; Italian: Sardegna; Sardinian: Sardigna or Sardinnya) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea (after Sicily). The area of Sardinia is 24,090 square kilometres (9,301 sq mi). The island is surrounded (clockwise from north) by the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Tunisia, and the Balearic Islands. Sardinia is a constitutional part of Italy, with a special statute of regional autonomy under the Italian Constitution. The name is of unknown origin, though it may have to do with a tribe called the Sardi.

Geography

Sardinia is the second largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, with a surface of 23.821 km². It is situated between 38° 51' and 41° 15' latitude north and 8° 8' and 9° 50' east longitude.

The coasts of Sardinia (1,849 km long) are generally high and rocky, rectilinear for kilometres, they are often articulated in promontories, with ample and deep bays and inlets surrounded by smaller isles.

The island, being an ancient territory with rocks that go back through the Palaeozoic Era (up to 500 million years old), does not possess any high mountains because of its long erosion processes. The granite, schist, tranchite, basalt (called "jars" or "gollei"), sandstone, and dolomite limestone (called tonneri or "heels") rocky highlands predominate at a height of between 300 and 1,000 meters.

The Gennargentu is a large mountain range in the center of the island; its highest peaks are Punta La Marmora (1,834 m.), Monte Limbara (1,362 m.) in the north, and Mount Rasu (1,259 m.), culminating in the Marghine chain, that runs crosswise for 40 km towards the north. The island's massifs and plateaus are separated by large alluvial valleys and flatlands; the main plains are the Campidano, located in the southwest between Oristano and Cagliari, and the Nurra, in the northwest.

Sardinia has few major rivers; the largest is the Tirso, which has a length of 94 miles (151 km) and flows into the Sardinian Sea. There are about fifty artificial lakes, of which Lake Omodeo and Lake Coghinas are the main ones. The only natural freshwater lake is Baratz Lake. A high number of large, salty lakes and lagoons are located along the 1.850 km of its coasts.

The climate is typical of the Mediterranean. The weather is clear. During the year approximately 300 days are sunny and the few others are rainy, with a major concentration of rainfall in the winter and autumn, some heavy showers in the spring, and snowfalls on the highest massifs and highlands. The mistral is the dominant wind, fresh, strong, and usually dry and cold, blowing from the northwest throughout the year, but most frequently in winter and spring.

History

Prehistory

Sardinia is one of the most ancient lands in Europe, visited during the Palaeolithic period though inhabited permanently by humans only much later, in the Neolithic age, around 6,000 B.C.

The first humans to settle in Gallura and northern Sardinia probably came from the Italian mainland and, in particular, from Etruria. Those who populated the central region of the island around the salt lakes of Cabras and S. Giusta may have arrived from the Iberian Peninsula by way of the Balearic Islands. Those who founded their settlements around the gulf of Cagliari were made up of several peoples.

Evidence of trade with other Aegean centres is present in the period 1600 BC onwards; for example fine ceramic products of Cydonia have been recovered in Sardinia. As time passed, the Sardinian peoples became united in language and customs, yet remained divided politically into various smaller tribal states. Sometimes they banded together, while at others they were at war with one another. Tribes lived in villages made up of round thatched stone huts, similar to those of present-day shepherds.

From about 1500 B.C. onwards, the villages were built at the foot of truncated cone fortresses (often reinforced and enlarged with embattled towers) called nuraghi.

The boundaries of tribal territories were guarded by smaller lookout nuraghi erected on strategic hills commanding a view of the enemy. Today some 7,000 nuraghi dot the Sardinian landscape.

Ancient history

Around 1000 B.C. the Phoenicians began to land on the shores of Sardinia with increasing frequency. Setting sail from Lebanon, on their trade routes as far afield as Britain they needed safe anchorages for the night or to weather a storm. The more common ports of call were Caralis, Nora, Bithia, Sulcis, Tharros, Bosa, Turris Lybissonis, and Olbia. They soon became important markets and after a time real towns, inhabited by Phoenician families who traded on the open sea and with the Nuragic Sardinians inland.

In 509 B.C., because the Phoenician expansion inland was becoming ever more menacing and penetrating, the native Sardinians attacked the coastal cities held by the enemy, who, in order to defend themselves, called upon Carthage for help. The Carthaginians, after a number of military campaigns, overcame the Sardinians and conquered the most mountainous region, later referred to as Barbarian or Barbagia. For 271 years, the Carthaginian or Punic civilization flourished alongside the local culture.

In 238 B.C. the Carthaginians, defeated by the Romans in the first Punic War, surrendered Sardinia, which became a province of Rome. The Romans enlarged and embellished the coastal cities and with their armies even penetrated the Barbagia region, thereby bringing down the nuragic civilization. The Roman domination in Sardinia lasted 694 years and was often opposed by the Sardinians from the mountains who, nevertheless, adopted the Latin language and civilization.

Medieval history

In 456 A.D., when the Roman Empire was rapidly declining, the Vandals of Africa, on their return from a raid in Latium on the mainland Italy, occupied Caralis along with the other coastal cities of Sardinia. In 534 the Vandals were defeated in the Battle of Tricamarum by the troops of Justinian, and Sardinia thus became Byzantine. The island was divided into districts called merèie, governed by a judge residing in Caralis (Cagliari) and garrisoned by an army stationed in Forum Traiani (nowadays Fordongianus) under the command of a dux. With the Byzantines came Christianity, which spread throughout the island (along with the monasticism of the followers of St. Basil), except in the Barbagia region. Here, towards the end of the sixth century, a short-lived independent domain reestablished itself, with local heathen and religious traditions, one of its kings being Ospitone.

Raids and attacks by the Berbers on the Sardinian shores began in 710 and grew ever more ruinous with time. Their inhabitants abandoned the coastal towns and cities. The judge provincial, in order to afford a better defence of the island, assigned his civil and military powers to his four lieutenants in Cagliari, Torres or Logudoro, Arborea, and Gallura. Around 900, the lieutenants gained their independence, in turn becoming judices (Sardinian judike, 'king') of their own logo or state. The judges were under Fatimid suzerainty between 901 and 1061.

Each one of these four Sardinian states constituted a sovereign kingdom, not patrimonial but independent, since it was not the property of the monarch. But they were at the same time democratic, since all the most important issues of national interest were not for the king (or giudice) himself to decide but were a matter for the representatives of the people gathered in assembly called corona de logu. Each kingdom manned its own fortified boundaries to protect its own political and trading affairs, its own parliament, laws (cartas de logu), languages, chancelleries, state emblems and symbols, etc.

The kingdom or "giudicato" of Cagliari was politically pro-Genoese. It was brought to an end in 1258 when its capital, S. Igia, was stormed and destroyed by an alliance of Sardinian-Pisan forces. The territory then became a colony of Pisa.

The kingdom of Torres, too, was pro-Genoese and came to an end in 1259 on the death of the giudicessa Adelasia. The territory was divided up between the Doria family of Genoa and the Basserra family of Arborea, while the city of Sassari became an autonomous city-republic.

The kingdom of Gallura ended in the year 1288, when the last giudice, Nino Visconti (a friend of Dante Alighieri), was driven out by the Pisans who occupied the territory.

The kingdom of Arborea was almost always under the political and cultural influence of the powerful marine republic of Pisa. It lasted some 520 years, with Oristano as its capital.

In 1297, Pope Boniface VIII in order to settle diplomatically the War of the Vespers, which broke out in 1282 between the Angevins and Aragonese over the possession of Sicily, established on his own initiative (motu proprio) a hypothetical regnum Sardiniae et Corsicae ("kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica"). The Pope enfeoffed it to the Catalan James II of Aragon, king of Aragon (a confederation made up of the kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia, plus the County of Barcelona), promising him support should he wish to conquer Pisan Sardinia in exchange for Sicily.

In 1323 James II of Aragon formed an alliance with the kings of Arborea and, following a military campaign which lasted a year or so, occupied the Pisan territories of Cagliari and Gallura along with the city of Sassari, naming them "Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica". In 1353, for reasons of state survival, war broke out between the kingdom of Arborea and the kingdom of "Sardinia and Corsica", part of the Crown of Aragon. In 1354 the Aragonese seized Alghero and reshaped it into an entirely Catalan city, which still today displays its Iberian origins.

In 1353 Peter IV of Aragon, called "the Cerimonious", granted legislative autonomy (a parliament) to the kingdom of "Sardinia and Corsica," which was followed in due course by self-government under a viceroy and judicial independence (Royal Hearing). From 1365 to 1409 the Arborean giudici Mariano IV, Ugone III, Mariano V (assisted by his mother Eleonora, the famous giudicessa regent), and Guglielmo III (French grandson of Eleonora) succeeded in occupying very nearly all Sardinia except Castle of Cagliari (today Cagliari and Alghero).

In 1409 Martin I, of Sicily ad heir to Aragon, defeated the Sardinians at the Battle of Sanluri and conquered once and for all the entire land. Shortly afterwards he died in Cagliari of malaria, without issue, and consequently the Crown of Aragon passed into the hands of the Castilians Trastàmara - in particular Ferdinand I of Aragon and his descendants - with the Compromise of Caspe in 1412.

Modern history

In 1479, as a result of the personal union of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabel of Castile, the Crown of Spain was born. Even the "kingdom of Sardinia" (which in the new title was separated from Corsica, since that island never was conquered) became Spanish, with the state symbol of the Four Moors. Following the failure of the military ventures against the Mulsumen of Tunis (1535) and Algiers (1541), Charles V of Spain, in order to defend his Mediterranean territories from pirate raids by the African Berbers, fortified the Sardinian shores with a system of coastal lookout towers.

The kingdom of Sardinia remained Spanish for approximately 400 years, from 1323 to 1720, assimilating a number of Spanish traditions, customs, and linguistic expressions, nowadays vividly portrayed in the folklore parades of Saint Efisio in Cagliari (May 1), the Cavalcade on Sassari (last but one Sunday in May), and the Redeemer in Nuoro (August 28).

In 1708, as a consequence of the Spanish War of Succession, the rule of the kingdom of Sardinia passed into the hands of the Austrians who landed on the island. In 1717 Cardinal Giulio Alberoni, minister of Felipe V of Spain, reoccupied Sardinia. In 1718, with the Treaty of London, Sardinia was handed over to the House of Savoy.

On 28 April 1794, during an uprising in Cagliari, two Piedmontese officials were killed. That was the start of a revolt (called the Moti rivoluzionari sardi) all over the island, which culminated in the expulsion of the tyrants. On 28 December 1795 in Sassari insurgents demonstrating against feudalism, mainly from the region of Logudoro, occupied the city. On 13 February 1796, in order to suppress a riot, the viceroy Filippo Vivalda gave to the Sardinian magistrate Giovanni Maria Angioy the role of Alternos, which meant a substitute of the viceroy himself. Angioy moved from Cagliari to Sassari, and during his journey almost all the villages joined the uprising, asking for the end of feudalism and for the independence of Sardinia's people.

In 1799, as a consequence of the Napoleonic wars in Italy, the Dukes of Savoy left Turin and took refuge in Cagliari for some fifteen years. In 1847 the Sardinians spontaneously renounced their state autonomy ad formed a union with Piedmont in order to have a single parliament, a single magistracy, and a single government in Turin.

In 1848 the Italian Wars of Independence broke out for the Unification of Italy and were led by the kings of Sardinia for thirteen years. In 1861 Sardinia joined the newly founded Kingdom of Italy.

During the First World War the Sardinian soldiers of the Brigata Sassari distinguished themselves, several being decorated with gold medals and other honors. It was the first and only Italian military unit constituted exclusively from Sardinian soldiers.

The Sardinian writer Grazia Deledda won Nobel Prize for Literature in 1926.

During the fascist period, and implementation of the policy of autarky, several swamps were reclaimed around the island and agrarian communities founded. The main communities were in the area of Oristano, where the village of Mussolinia (now called Arborea) was located, and in the area adjacent the city of Alghero, within the region of Nurra, Fertilia was founded. Also established during that time was the city of Carbonia, which became the main center of mining activity. Works to dry the numerous waste lands and the reprise of mining activities favored the arrival of settlers and immigrants, at first from Veneto, and after World War II Istrians and Dalmatians from Yugoslavia.

The repression by the fascist regime of its opponents within the region was ruthless. Antonio Gramsci, one of the founders of the Italian Communist Party, was arrested and died in prison. Michele Schirru was executed after a failed assassination plot against Benito Mussolini.

Postwar period

In 1946 by popular referendum Italy became a republic, with Sardinia administered since 1948 by special statute of autonomy.

By 1951, malaria was successfully eliminated with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation, which facilitated the commencement of the Sardinian tourist boom, mainly focused on beach holidays and elite tourism. Today about ten million people visit the island every year.

With the increase in tourism, coal decreased in importance. In the 1950s and 1960s the greatest Sardinian migration began. However, in the early 1960s an industrialization effort was commenced, the so-called Piani di Rinascita (rebirth plans), with the initiation of major infrastructure projects on the island. These included the construction of new dams and roads, reforestation, agricultural zones on reclaimed marshland, and large industrial complexes (primarily oil refineries and related petrochemical operations). With the creation of petrochemical industries, thousands of ex-farmers became industrial workers. Nevertheless, following 1973 the international oil crisis caused the termination of employment for thousands of workers employed in the petrochemical industries.

The economic crisis, unemployment, and the forced militarization of the island territory (in Sardinia were located 70% of Italian military bases) aggravated the crime rate, with increasing kidnappings and political subversion. Communist groups flourished, the most famous being Barbagia Rossa, which perpetrated several terrorist actions between the 1970s and the early 1980s.

In 1983 a militant of an autonomist party, the Sardinian Action Party (Partito Sardo d'Azione), was elected president of the regional parliament, and in the 1980s several independentist movements were born; in the 1990s some of them became political parties, and in 2006 in the Province of Sassari the first independentist militant was elected. In 1999 Sardinian received official status together with Italian.

Today Sardinia is phasing in as an EU region, with a diversified economy focused on tourism and the tertiary sector; the economic efforts of last twenty years have reduced the handicap of insularity, for example with low-cost air companies and advanced information technology, thanks to the CRS4 (Center for Advanced Studies, Research and Development in Sardinia), which developed the first Italian website in 1991 and webmail in 1995, which brought to birth several telecommunication companies and internet service providers based on the island, as Videonline in 1994 and Tiscali in 1998.

The next G8 summit was planned to be held in Sardinia, on the island of La Maddalena, in July 2009. The Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, in April 2009, violating the autonomous status of Sardinia, decided, without convoking the Italian parliament or consulting the governor of Sardinia, to move the summit, even though the works were almost completed, to L'Aquila, provoking protests among Sardinians.

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