Sassari 347
soon the newcomers’ political and economic interests clashed with the system
of the giudicati.
3 The Medieval City of Sassari
In the case of Thathari, the transition from rural village to urban town took
place in the early thirteenth century. The first tangible expression of this
transformation was the construction of the bailey, which was already partly
complete by 1235.27 Other documents from this period refer to the city as a
commune, thereby indicating the earliest recognition and affirmation of civic
identity on the part of Sassari’s ruling class and the powerful local and con-
tinental merchants who frequented the villa.28 No secure information on ei-
ther Sassari’s political structure in these years, or the degree of its autonomy
vis-à-vis the giudicati, is known. Nevertheless, given its precocious conception
in the early thirteenth century, the project to build the city’s bailey must have
initially been shared with the giudice of Torres, Mariano II,29 because of the
growing economic importance that Sassari was assuming in his kingdom. The
existence of a palatia regia in the city in the 1230s is also known, as well as
the fact that Enzo of Swabia, husband of the giudicessa Adelasia, had his resi-
dence on Sassari’s principal road.30
27 Documents describe Ubaldo Visconti, the giudice of Gallura and Torres, signing an act the
27th of September 1235 next to the southern side of the wall of Sassari; Vincenzo Dessì,
Ricerche sull’origine dello stemma di Sassari e degli stemmi dei Giudicati sardi (Sassari, 1979
[1905]), doc. II, pp. 29–30.
28 This process received the vested support of the communes of both Genoa and of Pisa.
Nevertheless the Tuscan and Ligurian merchant class, rooted for a long time in Sassari,
always followed an autonomous political course vis à vis their motherland while sharing
their objectives with their local counterparts; Simbula and Soddu, “Gli spazi dell’identità,”
pp. 160–161.
29 Most historians, equating the birth of the city with the birth of the commune, maintain
that Sassari was founded in direct opposition to the giudicati. In actual fact, between the
late twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the city must have been in the process of
being planned, the power of the giudici of Torres was not yet sufficiently compromised to
permit an unauthorized construction of a fort within the realm.
30 On the regia palatia, which was razed to the ground during the revolt against the giu-
dice Barisone, see Dionigi Scano, ed., Codice diplomatico delle relazioni fra la Santa Sede
e la Sardegna (Cagliari, 1940): Arti Grafiche B. C. T. On the domus domini regis Henthii,
see Cesare Casula, “Documenti inediti sui possessi sardi del Monastero di S. Lorenzo alle