Sardinia As A Crossroads In The Mediterranean 13
until 1714, when it was displaced by the house of Savoy, but that is a history for
another volume.
2 Historiography
The earliest surviving histories of Sardinia were created by Spanish humanists
and Sardinian literati, towards the end of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen-
turies, with the double intention of defining and consolidating conquered ter-
ritories into their own world, the Hispanias. These narratives told the history of
Sardinia from the conqueror’s perspective, much like other early Spanish and
Italian national narratives that emerged from the cultural, courtly, and aca-
demic environment of Renaissance humanism.
We do know of at least one local writer from the period who wrote a his-
tory incorporating what we would today call a geo-anthropological view of
Sardinians and their culture. Sardiania brevis historia et descriptio was written
in 1550 by Sigismondo Arquer, who was from Cagliari and educated in law at
Siena. The book included details of rituals derived from the pre-Christian era.
Arquer was also the financial agent of the Spanish Crown in Sardinia at the
time and had earned a reputation as a reformer. He was philo-Lutheran and
was outspoken against church corruption in Sardinia. Ultimately his “reform-
ing” ways cost him his life as his enemies reported him to the Inquisition, who
burned him at the stake in 1571.23
This defines, in a nutshell, the cultural environment of much of Sardinian
historiography for this period: a layered compound of cultures that evolves
from Nuragic times, historiographies written by the last agents of power, and
a fierce civic pride.
Among the first official version of Sardinian history was Historia general
de la isla y Reyno de Sardena, written in Barcelona between 1634–1639 by
Francisco de Vico, a figure who was part of both worlds and anointed as one
and Olivetta Schena (Barcelona, 2014); Cecilia Tasca, “Medici ebrei nel regno di Sardegna
in epoca catalano aragonese,” Bollettino di Scienze Mediche di Bologna (2011). For compari-
sons with Sicily, see Shlomo Simonsohn, “I rapporti fra la Sardegna e la Sicilia nel contesto
del mondo ebraico mediterraneo,” in Materia Giudaica 14:1/2 (2009), pp. 125–131.
23 Marcello M. Cocco, Sigismondo Arquer: dagli studi giovanili all’autodafé (Cagliari, 1987),
p. 414; Giampaolo Mele, “Ad mortem festinamus. Pellegrini e una Danza della Morte di
fine Trecento (Montserrat, còd. 1, Llibre Vermell, sec. XIVex., ff. 26v–27r),” in Pellegrinaggi e
peregrinazioni, ed. Giuseppe Serpillo. (Cosenza, 2011), pp. 50–151.