490 Coroneo
insignia of Aragon confirms the shift from Pisa to Barcelona, and from Pisan—
or locally trained craftsmen, still working in the Italian Gothic mode—to an
architect who imposed the forms and soaring lines typical of Catalan Gothic in
its most coherent manifestations.
Throughout the Gothic era, imposing defense works accompanied ecclesi-
astical structures. This pairing endured from the Aragonese castle of Sassari
(built between 1331 and 1341 and standing until ca. 1880) (see infra Ch. Rovina
Fig. 13.13) and the castle of Sanluri (restructured in 1355), all the way to the
construction of the Casa-Forte of Villasor (built in 1415) and the great tower of
Ghilarza (from the second half of the fifteenth century). The heavy fortifica-
tions begun by the Aragonese in the stronghold of Cagliari, and in the cities of
Alghero and Castellaragonese, were completed only in the sixteenth century,
when they gained polygonal ramparts along the oldest sections of their walls,
which featured square or circular turrets.
Figure 18.10 Cagliari. Church of Santa Maria a Castello interior.
From Pani Ermini et al., 2006.