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CHAPTER 19
Urban Planning and New Towns in Medieval
Sardinia
Marco CadinuThe historic centers of Sardinian towns and villages have preserved much of
their medieval urban structure, which resulted from important urban renewal
projects undertaken between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. Over time,
successive authorities layered new architecture and new urban projects upon
the first nuclei, and modern buildings have concealed their complex mesh of
signs and languages. As a consequence, it is not always straightforward to rec-
ognize the medieval urban landscape that has come down to us. However, we
can reconstruct the planning and architecture with the help of historic cartog-
raphy, land registers, as well as historic documents, archaeological fragments
embedded in walls, and the study of the era’s architecture. In the near absence
of direct documentation of town planning during the Middle Ages, the use of
stylistic and critical comparisons provides the basis on which to date those
projects that created streets, squares, and neighborhoods. This information
demonstrates that the medieval town was the result of political programs and
plans that were often as complex as modern ones, and they were supported
by considerable economic effort and implemented by experienced builders in
accordance with the era’s technical and design principles.
From the early Middle Ages until the eleventh century, construction was
simple in form or rural in character, but urban development employed more
evolved principles and normative models soon thereafter. The history of urban
places remains legible through units of structural measurement, residential
lot divisions, military models, and the coordination of planned actions. In this
sense, historians can read urban structures as original texts having documentary
value comparable to many available case studies.1 The debate regarding the ori-
gin and dating of urban structures in Sardinian villages and cities, particularly
1 The development of different urban forms in medieval Europe was the result of the historic,
cultural, and scientific ties to its geographical areas. The comparison of the plans and cultur-
al roots of the different types of new cities, like the French bastides or the Tuscan terrenove,
allow us to classify and suggest dates for their projects. Enrico Guidoni, Arte e urbanis-
tica in Toscana, 1000–1315 (Rome, 1970); Enrico Guidoni, Storia dell’urbanistica: il duecento