530 Cadinu
Cities still under the control of giudicati, like Oristano and Sassari, also ad-
opted Tuscan-inspired military solutions with the construction of new city
walls around the middle of the thirteenth century. The gates in these walls
were particularly important both symbolically and functionally. The walls also
featured smaller intermediate towers, which are evidenced in those of the city
of Iglesias (Fig. 19.12). The goal was to create both a modern defense system and
enclose streets and monumental complexes located outside the original urban
nucleus.64 In Oristano, new walls connected the entire bishopric complex—
the San Francesco convent, the Sant’Antonio complex, and especially a large
area, towards the Porta Mari, destined to become the commercial hub of the
giudicato. Giudice Mariano II promoted the design of a modern trapezoidal
square for his new palace, a fortified center, and perhaps a commercial loggia
and church.65 Two monumental gate towers completed the important military
work, which was probably conceived during the mid-thirteenth century.66 To the
north, the new Porta Ponti opened the way to the via Dritta (ruga mercatorum),
di Cagliari (Cagliari, 1925); Michele Pinna, Le Ordinazioni dei Consiglieri del Castello di
Cagliari del secolo XIV (Cagliari, 1928); Carlo Baudi di Vesme, ed., Il Breve di Villa di Chiesa
(Cagliari, 1977); Giovanni Todde, “Alcuni capitoli della città di Bosa,” Medioevo saggi e
rassegne 2 (1976), pp. 21–26; Enrico Besta, “Intorno ad alcuni frammenti di un antico sta-
tuto di Castelsardo,” Archivio Giuridico F. Serafini n.s. 3:2 (1899), pp. 281–332; Enrico Costa,
Gli Statuti del Comune di Sassari nei secoli XIII e XIV, e un errore ottantenne denunziato
alla storia sarda (Sassari, 1904); Giovanni Zirolia, Statuti inediti di Castel Genovese (Sassari,
1898). Pinuccia Simbula, L’organizzazione portuale di una città medievale: Cagliari XIV–
XV secolo (Raleigh, 2012).
64 Foiso Fois, Castelli della Sardegna medioevale (Milano, 1992). A recent overview, while in-
complete, can be found in G. R. Franco Campus, “Castelli e dinamiche dell’insediamento
urbano nella Sardegna bassomedievale (XII–XIV secolo),” in Identità cittadine ed élites
politiche e economiche in Sardegna tra XIII e XV secolo, ed. Giuseppe Meloni, Pinuccia F.
Simbula, and Alessandro Soddu (Sassari, 2010), pp. 29–62; Marco Cadinu, “Documenti e
testimonianze materiali di case a torre medievali in Sardegna,” in Case e Torri medievali.
Indagini sui centri dell’Italia meridionale e insulare (secc.XI–XV ), V Convegno nazionale,
Orte, 15–16 marzo 2013, ed. Elisabetta De Minicis (Rome: 2014).
65 A church dedicated to San Giovanni is shown in the nineteenth-century land registries
near a building with three protruding elements that were either buttresses or pillars. It is
possible that this was the city’s mercantile’s loggia, as mentioned in a late document. See
Mele, Oristano giudicale, p. 136.
66 Mariano II, giudice of Oristano from 1241 to 1291 had close contacts with the Pisan world.
The dating of the two towers to 1290 and 1293 does not exclude the city’s urban redesign to
the preceding decades, probably to the mid-thirteenth century. See Cadinu, Urbanistica
medievale, p. 79. The Giudice’s family owned a tower house in Pisa; others tower houses
were built in this period in many Sardinian towns, Cadinu, “Documenti e testimonianze.”