Sassari 355
Corsicans, Pisans, and Genoese, all of whom ultimately enriched the multieth-
nic character of Sassari.45
The construction of the castle occurred in the wake of Sassari’s revolt, prob-
ably under the rule of Ramon de Montpaó, and it was built at the city’s own ex-
pense. The fortress underwent many restorations and reconstructions before
its complete demolition in the late 1800s (Fig. 13.12).46 Recent archaeological
investigations have brought to light important evidence of life in the various
phases of the fortress’s existence. No trace of the original building’s elevation
has survived, merely a portion of the moat dug from the rock surrounding it.
In the northern moat, beneath the castle’s facade, a defensive structure for
guarding an escape route at the bottom of the moat was built between the late
fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. It is a sort of “barbican” consisting of
two superimposed corridors around 80 meters long, connected by stone stairs
and furnished with firing holes for blunderbusses that open onto the mighty
wall that fences them off from the exterior (Fig. 13.13). The fortification was
abandoned and filled up in the seventeenth century and is preserved beneath
Piazza Castello and Cavallino de Honestis. After its rediscovery and the com-
pletion of the dig, it was restored and is presently open to the public through
guided tours.
From the second half of the sixteenth century, the castle lost its defensive
function and became the seat of the tribunal of the Holy Inquisition in Sardinia,
sadly famous for the trials and tortures carried out there.47 Archaeological
evidence from this phase is represented by a bell-shaped cistern excavated in
the rock and found near Piazza Castello, in the area formerly occupied by the
fortress. In view of the incisions, charcoal drawings, and carved low reliefs of
human figures, crucifixes, and the Virgin and Child, the cistern must have been
reused as a detention cell.48 The hypogeum, like the moat, was filled up and
sealed in the eighteenth century, as testified by the pottery (Italian majolica,
majolica and Catalonian luster, and local graffito) discovered inside. Another
important link between these findings and the associated local production
45 Maria Immacolata Roggio, Spazi urbani e società nella Sassari del XIV secolo. For refer-
ences to the Juaria in the fourteenth-fifteenth centuries, see Cecilia Tasca, Gli ebrei in
Sardegna nel XIV secolo: società, cultura, istituzioni (Cagliari, 1992), doc. XXXIX, p. 283;
XCIV p. 308, CDLXXXVIII p. 520, and p. 97.
46 On the excavations of the Aragonese castle, see Luca Sanna, “Piazza castello e piazza
Cavallino de Honestis,” in Rovina and Fiori, Sassari, pp. 98–107.
47 Giancarlo Sorgia, L’inquisizione in Sardegna (Cagliari, 1991).
48 Diaz, Il codice degli Statuti.