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CHAPTER 8
The Struggle for Sardinia in the Twelfth Century:
Textual and Architectural Evidence from Genoa
and Pisa
Henrike HaugIn 1166, Genoese and Pisan ambassadors met at the court of Emperor Frederick
I Barbarossa to hold negotiations about their respective rights to Sardinia.1
The two maritime republics, once allies against the Saracens in the eleventh
century, became involved in an intense rivalry for markets and zones of influ-
ence in the western Mediterranean from 1119 onwards.2 Sardinia was one of
the main points of contention between them. Following the expulsion of the
Arabs from the island in 1015/1016 by a joint Genoese and Pisan fleet, hostilities
between the two city-states over possession of Sardinia became increasingly
frequent over the course of the twelfth century.3 Each tried to expel the other
1 Enrico Besta, La Sardenga medioevale (Bologna, 1966 [1909]); Geo Pistarino, “Genova e la
Sardegna nel secolo XII,” in La Sardegna nel mondo mediterraneo (Sassari, 1978), pp. 33–125;
Alberto Boscolo, Sardegna, Pisa e Genova nel Medioevo (Genoa, 1978); and Geo Pistarino and
Laura Balletto, “Inizio e sviluppo dei rapporti tra Genova e la Sardegna nel Medioevo,” Studi
Genuensi 14 (1997), pp. 1–14.
2 The history of Corsica and Sardinia is largely connected to the history of the struggle be-
tween Genoa and Pisa for supremacy on these islands between the tenth and thirteenth cen-
turies. See Giuseppe Rossi-Sabatini, L’espansione di Pisa nel Mediterraneo fino alla Melloria
(Florence, 1935), pp. 31–42 and Henry Bresc’s chapter in this volume.
3 This joint armada belonged to the early period of the battles waged by the two emerging
communes against the Saracens. Muğāhid al-Amiri, ruler of the taifa of Denia since 1014, had
attacked Sardinia from the Balearic Islands and, from this location, had threatened maritime
trade and Christian settlements on the Italian coast by attacking Pisa in 1011 and Luni in
- A critical assessment of an Islamic dominance vs. an Islamic presence in Sardinia in
the eleventh century is discussed in Corrado Zedda’s contribution to this volume. According
to their historiographical texts, Genoa and Pisa drove the Saracen rulers from the island,
but shortly thereafter proceeded to fight among themselves for supremacy. See Bernardo
Maragone, Gli Annales Pisani, ed. Michele Lupo Gentile (Bologna, 1936), for the events of 1017
s.p.: “insurrexerunt Ianunenses in Pisanos, et Pisani vicerunt illos et eiecerunt eos de Sardinea
(The Genoese rose up against the Pisans, and the Pisans conquered them and expelled them
from Sardinia).” See also, Michael Matzke, Daibert von Pisa. Zwischen Pisa, Papst und erstem
Kreuzzug (Sigmaringen, 1998), pp. 47–50; and Marc von der Höh, Erinnerungskultur und