502 Cadinu
In terms of the history of urban development, this phase had enormous
consequences. Almost every city, along with the Roman and Byzantine coun-
try villas, faced not only destruction but abandonment and reconstruction in
other places, and not always immediately. For example, this was the fate of
the Roman cities of Karales, Tharros, Nora, Trajan’s Forum, Turris Libisonis,
Neapolis, and Cornus. We can only speculate about the material and cultural
relationships between these places and the cities that sometimes appropri-
ated their names, either directly or indirectly, after the eleventh century, and
inherited some functions that required the coordination of their respective
territories.11 A small part of the population probably resettled in the same
places, adapting and reusing urban structures, about which—at least in the
case of Cagliari—we have little certainty.12 But in the eleventh century, Cagliari
underwent its first phase of reconstruction or re-foundation, which generated
urban forms completely independent from Roman and Byzantine design. The
physical presence of the ancient world disappeared along with the rules for
the management of public space and the design of the streets, squares, monu-
ments, and residential buildings.13
medievale: metodologie ed esempi di studio a confronto, Viterbo-Rome, 3–4 dicembre
2009, ed. Elisabetta De Minicis, Museo della Città e del Territorio, N.S., 2 (Rome, 2011),
pp. 161–182.
11 Cornus and Neapolis were not rebuilt, nor was Tharros, unless we want to believe the
scholarly tradition that tells of a reconstruction over 14 miles away, bearing the name of
Oristano, at the end of the eleventh century. Nora, Trajan’s Forum (later Fordongianus),
and Turris Libisonis survived on the new site, not as a city but not in the form of small vil-
lages. Sassari is located more than 18 km inland from Turris Libisonis. Regarding Cornus,
see Anna Maria Giuntella, “Brevi note sull’area cimiteriale orientale di Cornus (Cuglieri,
provincia di Oristano),” in Insulae Christi. Il Cristianesimo primitivo in Sardegna, Corsica
e Baleari, ed. Pier Giorgio Spanu (Oristano, 2002), pp. 245–252; Letizia Pani Ermini,
“Cultura, materiali e fasi storiche del complesso archeologico di Cornus: primi risultati di
una ricerca,” in L’archeologia Romana e altomedievale nell’Oristanese: atti del 1. Convegno
di Cuglieri: Cuglieri, 22–23 giugno 1984 (Taranto, 1986), pp. 69–229.
12 Letizia Pani Ermini believes that, in the case of Cagliari, historians can sometimes evalu-
ate reuse outside the logic of mere superimposition, interpreting the long-term resilience
the populations in certain places, see Letizia Pani Ermini, “Cagliari, località Santa Gilla:
saggi di via Brenta,” Quaderni della Soprintendenza archeologica per le provincie di Cagliari
e Oristano 4:2 (1987), p. 93.
13 Evidence of continuity of the urban road structures is rare. Dwellings in the principal
new cities of the thirteenth century, like Cagliari, Iglesias, or Terranova, were built in
rows, which were widespread throughout the European Middle Ages and which arrived
in Sardinia as a result of urban initiatives in Italian municipalities. In the past, scholars
referred to some centers as the direct heirs of Roman city planning, albeit without any