352 Rovina
even given the character of civic architecture, which consisted of common
one-story homes and many multi-storied lordly palatii, furnished with wooden
balconies and porticos that were used for commercial activity.37 Other regula-
tions govern sites in the city where various provisions were sold, as well as the
artisanal and productive activities that developed around them.38
The rest of the structures dated between the fourteenth and fifteenth centu-
ries brought to light by urban excavations reveal the persistent use of masonry
bound by clay, as well as its coexistence with other types bound by mortar,
which can be inferred from the statutes mentioned above.39 Extraordinarily
interesting is the discovery beneath Via Monache Cappuccine of an entire por-
tion of the neighborhood, which was in use at least until the mid-fourteenth
century, then abandoned, but dug up in the seventeenth century in order to
make room for broadening the space before the church of S. Salvatore and
the subsequent monastery. This consisted of a street excavated into the rock,
around which lay the remains of habitations with dirt or cobblestone floors,
and equipped with cisterns and clay hearths (Fig. 13.10).40
An excavation of the infill of a well dug from the rock at the bottom of
present-day Via S. Satta likewise appears of particular interest for the recon-
struction of daily life in Sassari circa the mid-fourteenth century.41 It contained
remains of a firepot, Pisan glazed pottery (archaic majolica), Ligurian archaic
graffito from Savona, and Valencian glazed ware (Fig. 13.11). The deposit also
contained wooden objects, such as bowls, combs, heels of shoes, and an enor-
mous quantity of animal remains and seeds that make it possible to trace an
37 On the medieval civic architecture of Sassari, see V. Mossa, Architetture sassaresi (Sassari,
1965); F. Ledda, “L’edilizia abitativa a Sassari tra Due e Trecento,” Sardegna antica. Culture
mediterranee, 10:17 (2000), pp. 23–26; and Marisa Porcu Gaias, Sassari. Storia architettoni
ca e urbanistica dalle origini al ‘600 (Nuoro, 1996).
38 Among the professions named in the statutes and other documents of the period are no-
taries, physicians, cloth-vendors, furriers, goldsmiths, tanners, blacksmiths, tailors, cob-
blers, butchers, fish-vendors, weavers, farmers, grain, bean-, vegetable-, cheese-, leather-,
and hide-vendors, bread-bakers, etc.
39 Diaz, Il codice degli Statuti.
40 Rovina, “Scavi urbani a Sassari.”; Problemi metodologici e primi risultati; Mauro
Fiori and Daniela Rovina, “Via Monache Cappuccine,” in Fiori and Rovina, Sassari,
pp. 138–141.
41 Laura Biccone, “Relazioni economiche e commerciali nel Mediterraneo occidentale:
l’esempio della Sardegna alla luce di fonti scritte e fonti materiali (Secoli IX–XIII),” doc-
toral thesis, University of Sassari, 2010.