Alghero 369
demolished, but rather transformed into a stronghold thanks to a process of
reinforcement in which the soil leaning up against the walls was substantial-
ly replenished to increase resistance in anticipation of enemy assaults with
heavy artillery. This widespread technique, known as terraplenar, required the
labor of numerous diggers (2,000 were active in Alghero in 1575), whose work
is documented by the erection of embankments in Cagliari and Alghero.24 This
discovery illustrates, with exemplary clarity, how the old Catalan (or Genoese)
24 We believe that we have also identified the work of diggers in the excavations of
Castelsardo, see Marco Milanese, Castelsardo: archeologia di una fortezza dai Doria agli
Spagnoli (Sassari, 2010), pp. 26–27. On the relationship between written and archaeologi-
cal documentation in the study of the work of diggers assigned to military embankments,
see Milanese, “Archeologia Postmedievale e Storia Moderna,” pp. 584–585; and Mele, “La
difesa dal Turco,” p. 157.
Figure 14.4 Bastion of San Giacomo. On the left the late
medieval walls, and in the center and the right the
sixteenth-century embankment under excavation.