History of Sardinia

The recorded history of Sardinia begins with its contacts with the various people who sought to dominate western Mediterranean trade in classical antiquity: Phoenicians, Punics and Romans.

The dolmens culture, around the end of the 3rd millennium BC, passed with other typical material aspects of Western Europe (e.g. Bell Beaker) through by the Sardinian coast even in Sicily.

The Nuragic Sards also produced a vast collection of bronze statuettes and the so-called giants of Mont'e Prama, which might constitute the first anthropomorphic statues of Europe.

[6] The alleged connection with the Sherden, one of the sea peoples who invaded Egypt and other areas of eastern Mediterranean, has been supported by scholars like the professor Giovanni Ugas from the University of Cagliari;[7][8][9] this hypothesis has been however opposed by other archaeologists and historians.

From the 8th century BC, Phoenicians founded several cities and strongholds on strategic points in the south and west of Sardinia, often peninsulas or islands near estuaries, easy to defend and natural harbours, such as Tharros, Bithia, Sulci, Nora and Caralis (Cagliari).

[13] They expanded their influence to the western and southern coast from Bosa to Caralis, consolidating the existing Phoenician colonies, administered by plenipotentiaries called Suffetes, and founding new ones such as Olbia, Cornus and Neapolis;[14] Tharros probably became the capital of the province.

A Roman army of 22,000 infantrymen and 1,200 cavalry, under Titus Manlius Torquatus, reached Sardinia landing in Caralis and defeating Hiostus, the son of Hampsicora, near Milis.

During the Roman period, the geographer Ptolemy noted that Sardinia was inhabited by the following tribes, from north to south: the Tibulati and the Corsi, the Coracenses, the Carenses and the Cunusitani, the Salcitani and the Lucuidonenses, the Æsaronenses, the Æchilenenses (also called Cornenses), the Rucensi, the Celsitani and the Corpicenses, the Scapitani and the Siculensi, the Neapolitani and the Valentini, the Solcitani and the Noritani.

In 456, the Vandals, an East Germanic tribe, coming from North Africa, occupied the coastal cities of the island; they imposed garrisons guarded by African auxiliaries, like the Mauri.

During the Gothic Wars, much of the island fell easily to the Ostrogoths, but the final fall of the Germanic resistance in mainland Italy reassured Byzantine control.

According to the Pope Gregory I's letters, a Romanized and Christianized area existed on the island (that of the provinciales) that co-existed with, in the interior, pagan or semi-pagan cultures (Gens Barbaricina).

The late 11th-century arrival of Benedictine, Camaldolese and other monks from the Italian Mezzogiorno, Lombardy and Provence, especially the monasteries of Montecassino, Saint-Victor de Marseille and Vallombrosa, boosted the agriculture in a land which was extremely underdeveloped.

One of the most remarkable Sardinian figure of the Middle Ages, Eleanor of Arborea, was co-ruler of that region in the late 14th century; she laid the foundations for the laws that remained valid until 1827, the Carta de Logu.

The Peace of Sanluri (1355) ushered in a period of tranquility, but hostilities were resumed in 1365, with Arborea, led by Marianus IV and then, from 1391, by Brancaleone Doria, initially able to capture much of the Island.

In 1527, during the Franco-Spanish War, a French army of 4000 men led by the Italian Renzo da Ceri attacked the north of the island, besieging Castellaragonese and sacking Sorso and then Sassari for almost a month.

In the late 15th and in the early 16th century the Spaniards built watchtowers all along the coast (today called "Spanish towers") to protect the island against Ottoman incursions.

Because of these successes, the representatives of nobility and clergy (Stamenti) formulated five requests addressed to the King Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia in order to have the same rights as the Italian mainlanders, but they met with a refusal.

This gave rise to many abuses, as the reform favoured the landholders while excluding the poor Sardinian farmers and shepherds, who witnessed the abolition of the communal rights and the sale of the land.

Many local rebellions like the Nuorese Su Connottu ("The Already Known" in Sardinian) riot in 1868,[46][47] all repressed by the King's army, resulted in an attempt to return to the past and reaffirm the right to use the once common land.

In 1847, under King Charles Albert, all the administrative differences between Sardinia and the Italian mainland were abolished through the so-called Perfect fusion: this manoveur had been presented as the only possible way to grant equal rights to all inhabitants of the Kingdom, which would become a unitary state and the basic legislation of the future united Italy as well.

In 1883 the first train travelled between Cagliari and Sassari, and in these decades were made all the modern public works: roads, dams, schools, sewers and aqueducts, mainly in the cities.

Rural Sardinia showed little interest in the Fascist state, while the urban bourgeoisie from the cities, some of which being repopulated by Italian mainlanders, were its staunchest supporters on the island.

[50] In the same years the Italian economic miracle led to the birth of Sardinian tourist "boom", mainly focused on beach holidays and luxury tourism, such as in Costa Smeralda.

However, shortly after the Second World War a ponderous industrialization effort was commenced, the so-called "Piani di Rinascita" (Rebirth Plans), with the initiation of major infrastructure projects on the island.

This included the realization of new dams and roads, reforestation, agricultural zones on reclaimed marsh land, and large industrial complexes (primarily oil refineries and related petrochemical operations).

In the 1950s and 1960s many Sardinians migrated to Northern and Central Italy (Lombardy, Piedmont, Liguria, Tuscany and Rome) and the rest of Europe (mostly in Germany, France and Belgium) but also from the interior of the island to the coastal cities of Cagliari, Olbia and Sassari.

In the early 1960s with the creation of petrochemical industries, thousands of ex-farmers became specialised workers, and some others would commence to work on the newly established military bases,[51] created primarily for the NATO.

[58][59] Among other factors, economic crisis and unemployment aggravated the crime rate, as evidenced by the increasing frequency of phenomena such as kidnappings and political subversion of the Anonima sarda: between the 1970s and the early 1980s, some communist and nationalist militant groups, the most famous being Barbagia Rossa and the Sardinian Armed Movement (MAS), claimed several terrorist attempts.

The economic efforts of last twenty years have reduced the supposed handicap of insularity, for example with low cost air companies and information and informatic technologies, thanks to the CRS4 (Center for Advanced Studies, Research and Development in Sardinia).

The CRS4 developed the first Italian website, and invented the webmail, in 1995, that brought to the birth of several telecommunication companies and internet service providers based on the island, such as Video On Line (1993), Tiscali (1998) and Andala UMTS (1999).