22 Hobart
Byzantine culture and remains found in Sardinia, see Ai confini dell’impero and
Roberto Coroneo’s Scultura mediobizantina in Sardegna.47
Previous considerations of the presence of Muslim,48 Jewish,49 and North
African communities in Sardinia during the centuries preceding the church
reform, have been opposed or simply ignored. Even today, despite a growing
literature on possible traces, settlements, and material culture, this notion
of “others” raises suspicion and doubt. The challenge represented by non-
European populations in Sardinia goes back to the early medieval period, to an
era that is ill-documented in the histories that were eventually written about
the island. In such works, North Africans and other non-Christian residents
of Sardinia (with the exception of Barbaricini, or Berbers, who settled in the
mountainous interior of the island) were excluded. Therefore, in many of the
inherited histories of Sardinia, what remains is an often-repeated narrative
wherein a Muslim presence is stereotypically associated with attacks on, and
attempts to conquer the island.50 Corrado Zedda (infra) offers a convincing
47 Corrias and Cosentino, Ai confini dell’Impero; Roberto Coroneo, Scultura mediobizan-
tina in Sardegna (Nuoro, 2000); Corrias, Forme e caratteri della presenza bizantina. For
Byzantine hagiography, see Raimondo Bacchisio Motzo, Studi sui Bizantini in Sardegna e
sull’agiografia sarda (Cagliari, 1987).
48 The Egyptian scholar, Mohamed Mustafa Bazama, was professionally ostracized when he
introduced the idea that a Muslim community existed in Sardinia; see his Arabi e sardi
nel Medioevo (Cagliari, 1988). Before his publication, there had been at least two other
attempts: the first, published by the publishing house founded by Boscolo (Edizioni della
Torre), by Luigi Pinelli, Gli arabi e la Sardegna: le invasioni arabe in Sardegna dal 704 al 1016
(Cagliari, 1977); and Paolo Benito Serra, “Elementi di Cultura materiale di ambito Ebraico
dall’Alto Impero all’alto medioevo,” in Spanu, Insulae Christi, pp. 67–110.
49 Cecilia Tasca has a chapter in this volume and has thoroughly identified and even tran-
scribed most of the Jewish documents surviving, not only in Sardinia, but also in other
Mediterranean archives. See her rich bibliography and the fundamental volume “Gli ebrei
in Sardegna nel contesto Mediterraneo. La riflessione storiografica da Giovanni Spano ad
oggi.” Atti del XXII Convegno internazionale dell’AISG e X Convegno internazionale Italia
Judaica: Cagliari, 17–20 November 2008. Materia Giudaica 14:1/2 (2009), pp. 11–359.
50 Recently, Islam and Sardinia are being revisited by Piero Fois, “Il ruolo della Sardegna
nella conquista Islamica dell’occidente (VIII secolo),” RiMe. Rivista dell’Istituto di Storia
dell’Europa Mediterranea 7 (2011), pp. 5–26; Giovanni Serrelli, “Tra storia e archeologia:
la località di Piscina Nuxedda alle origini del Regno giudicale di Càlari,” in Meloni, Oliva,
and Schena, Ricordando Alberto Boscolo. These authors explore the nature of Muslim
communities in Sardinia. From an architectural and urban planning point of view, see
Marco Cadinu, “Elementi di derivazione islamica nell’architettura e nell’urbanistica della
Sardegna medievale. I segni di una presenza stabile,” in Settecento-Millecento. Storia,
Archeologia e Arte nei “secoli bui” del Mediterraneo, I, Dalle fonti scritte, archeologiche ed