514 Cadinu
move towards European cultural trends and transform them according to its
principal needs.
3 The First Giudicati Cities and the Giudicale Urban Planning
The medieval towns of Sardinia have come down into the modern era mainly
through thirteenth- and fourteenth-century urban and architectural forms
that have accrued layers of subsequent centuries. Cagliari, Sassari, Oristano,
Bosa, and Iglesias, Terranova-Olbia and Alghero are the major examples and,
with their walls and monuments, they are still the island’s major urban centers.
Their forms owe much to Tuscany as a result of military, political, and commer-
cial relations in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, particularly after the
re-founding of Cagliari in 1215–1216. During this time, Sardinia’s cities and their
urban structures moved definitively towards the urban model of many Italian
communal cities, before they shifted once again towards the Iberian model
from the second third of the fourteenth century onwards.
Today, research focuses on defining characteristic urban features prior
to 1215, when the cities of the giudicati—Santa Igia, Sassari, Oristano, and
Bosa—were either emerging or had become well-defined urban systems.
Despite only having fragmentary documentation, we must imagine that the
cities of the giudici were shaped differently than those that came to be es-
tablished in the thirteenth century. If the Pisans had not destroyed Santa Igia
in 1258, at the end of their invasion, the city would have provided important
evidence in this regard. At the end of the twelfth century it was one of the
most important Mediterranean ports for both Pisan and Genoese economic
interests. From its walls to its buildings, the city was designed as a complete
urban organism, rooted in the culture of the giudicati and modernized by
giudice Marquis Guglielmo of Massa.35 It is possible that, on the eve of the
in Studies in the Archaeology of the Medieval Mediterranean, ed. James J. Schryver (Leiden,
2010), p. 110: “However, the possibility that Muslim settlers were so assimilated into
Sardinian society that it is impossible to identify their presence in the archaeological re-
cord should not be excluded.”
35 Guglielmo di Massa was at the center of Tyrrenian and Pisan politics between the end of
the twelfth century and 1215: heir to the Cagliari Giudicato and to the title Marchese di
Massa, north of Pisa, he was among the protagonists in the battle for power in Tuscany
and controlled important commercial and territorial interests in Sardinia. On the lost
city of Santa Igia, see S. Igia. Capitale giudicale: Contributi all’incontro di Studio “Storia,
ambiente fisico e insediamenti umani nel territorio di S. Gilla,” Cagliari, 3–5 novembre 1983
(Pisa, 1986). Raimondo Pinna’s provocative interpretations deserve special consideration