Urban Planning And New Towns In Medieval Sardinia 511
rural and pastoral village plans, which evidence very little of late medieval
(and subsequent European) culture. Historically, such villages remained on
the edge of the main political, cultural, and urban scene, preserving and hand-
ing down archaic traditions well into the twentieth century. The frequent
contact and exchanges between Sardinia and Maghreb, already present in
Late Antiquity,28might have contributed to stabilize the pre-judgeship with
Mediterranean cultural elements; to this period place names (or toponyms)
such as Almiddina near Olbia (derivative from the word Medina), and the re-
gion Sarrabus to the southeast of the island, and the medieval Judicati Sarabi,
or Sarabo, from Is Arabus (i.e. from the word Arab).29
The roots of these strongly suggest historic contacts with North Africa and
the possibility that Sardinia had been a destination for significant colonial mi-
gration in an era characterized by Islamic control of large parts of the island.30
A steady stream of findings attesting to Islamic communities in late medieval
28 Attilio Mastino, Mare Sardum: merci, mercati e scambi marittimi della Sardegna antica
(Rome, 2005), pp. 127–128. Both the pre-Islamic component and Berber role in the re-
ciprocal historical influence should be acknowledged, given the proximity between
Sardinia and Maghreb. See the status quaestionis in Patrice Cressier, “Urbanisation, ara-
bisation, islamisation au Maroc du Nord: Quelques remarques depuis l’archéologie,” in
Peuplement et arabisation au Maghreb occidental, eds Jordi Aguadé, Patrice Cressier, and
Ángeles Vincente (Madrid, 1998), pp. 27–38. Corisande Fenwick, “From Africa to Ifrīqiya:
Settlement and Society in Early Medieval North Africa (650–800),” Al-Masāq vol. 25, no. 1
(2013), pp. 9–33, and 11–12 on Tunisia between Byzantine and Islamic periods.
29 Construction processes came down to the mid-twentieth century when the introduction
of industrial manufacturing technologies quickly replaced the traditional dwelling. It
is estimated that there were about 150 villages with courtyard buildings, with the re-
maining assets of more than 50,000 dwellings in the Campidano, Oristano, and Sarrabus
plains and ultimately in the mountains. In these areas, builders predominantly used
earth construction with stone and local techniques. Even in the middle of the twentieth
century, there could have been double that number of dwellings. Surveys and types can
be found in Osvaldo Baldacci, La casa rurale in Sardegna (Florence, 1952); Maurice Le
Lannou, Patres et paysans de la Sardaigne (Tours, 1941 [1979]); see also Carlo Atzeni and
Antonello Sanna, Architettura in terra cruda dei Campidani, del Cixerri e del Sarrabus
(Rome, 2009).
30 Cadinu, Urbanistica medievale, pp. 16–17. For a technical definition of Islamic mod-
els in Sardinia 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 artistiche alla ricostruzione della vicenda storica: la Sardegna laboratorio
di esperienze culturali, Cagliari, 17–19 ottobre 2012, ed. Rossana Martorelli (Cagliari, 2014),
pp. 387–424.