Urban Planning And New Towns In Medieval Sardinia 547
The influx of Catalans and Aragonese had material and demographic reper-
cussions beyond the renovation of Cagliari’s urban topography. In Cagliari,
Alghero, and Sassari, the Aragonese expelled many inhabitants—in particu-
lar Pisans—and replaced them with new settlers. They even replaced the
monks in Pisan monasteries, the majority of whom were Tuscan, with new
ones from Barcelona. Likewise, Catalonian Gothic architecture supplanted
the Romanesque as the region’s new architectural style.100 In Alghero—as
in Cagliari and Terranova—expansion to the south upheld the most modern
urban criteria. New roads, parallel to a main one aligned with the cathedral
bell tower, restructured the city within the Pisan walls (Fig. 19.21).101
The foundation of a city and the urban project that entailed were pow-
erful tools of political propaganda in the Middle Ages. The authorities in
charge of designing and building new towns cultivated this art with great
care, because founding a city was the demonstration of acquired power,
manifested in the availability of land and economic resources. In this way,
new towns created market confidence, along with new prospects for citizens,
artisans, and merchants who, by settling in the conquered lands populated
and strengthened their kingdoms. For example, in the founding document
(1346) of the new suburb of the Burgos Castle, the giudice Mariano IV de-
clared his pride in founding a new village with 25 houses.102 These operations
required the utmost political and financial commitment. They also had to re-
spect certain aspects of the past, with continual attention to maintaining high
social and cultural standards.
100 Francesca Segni Pulvirenti and Aldo Sari, Architettura tardogotica e di influsso rinascimen-
tale (Nuoro, 1994).
101 Cadinu, Urbanistica medievale, pp. 87–90.
102 Mariano IV d’Arborea, Oristano’s Giudice, wrote in the founding act of Burgos in 1346:
“assos principes et potentes segnores neuna maiore gloria at declaradu qui ode faguiri novas
chidades et logos over et issos chi sunt fundados amplificare et crescere (To principles and
powerful lords God has given no greater glory than to today found new cities and prov-
inces, and to extend and increase those that are already founded)”; see Pasquale Tola,
ed., Codex diplomaticus Sardiniae. Historiae Patriae Monumenta (Turin: 1861), p. 762.
The words of the judge reflect the legacy of a long tradition of treatises, and evidently
known landmarks in that time. Cassiodorus wrote in 507–511: “Digna est constructio civi-
tatis, in qua se commendet cura regalis, quia laus est temporum reparatio urbium vetusta-
rum (What worth is the construction of a city in which it highlights the care of the king,
because it is the glory of our time, the restoration of the ancient cities).”