28 Hobart
contributed to this volume, has paid particular attention to the changes in
urban planning on Sardinia. Before Cadinu, little—if any—work had been
done in this field. What Cadinu found is that the standard orthogonal plan of
former Roman cities, such as Cagliari and many smaller cities, morphed into
enclosed compounds, reminiscent of settlement patterns in North Africa.73 The
question that remains is why archaeology has not shown much evidence of sig-
nificant Arab or North African communities in Sardinia. Did the communities
live together or separately? Have investigations targeted the correct locations
for their field explorations? Finally, would there be a visible difference in the
material culture of everyday life of North Africans and Sardinians that would
testify to such a presence? The notably scarce remains from the early Middle
Ages in the archaeological record have made it particularly difficult to iden-
tify any difference between different religious groups, or speculate on if they
were indeed segregated within the city. Is it possible that Christian, Muslim
and Jewish communities in Sardinia were similar to the point where they no
longer emerge independently in the archaeological record?
Adopting a broader perspective, the twentieth-century Mediterranean has
received important scholarly treatment from a macro point of view. However,
the work of Fernand Braudel, Peregrine Horden, Nicholas Purcell, and Chris
Wickham makes little or no mention of Sardinia.74 When Sardinia is named,
it is relegated to the footnotes. Through no one’s fault other than possible aca-
demic isolation and language gaps, much of the Sardinian work inspired by
people like Alberto Boscolo seems not to have reached Anglo-French histori-
ans. In contrast, scholars who deal with Sardinia, Spain, and Italy have indeed
been actively re-examining documents and revising the Sardinian narrative,
bridging the gap between Sardinian and non-Sardinian scholarship.
Using an extreme example, in his article for Rethinking the Mediterranean,
David Abulafia examines relationships between different ethnic groups in
73 Marco Cadinu, Urbanistica medievale in Sardegna (Rome, 2001); 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 “sec-
oli 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. 399–428.
74 Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip
II (Berkeley, 1995 [1949]); Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell, The Corrupting Sea: A
Study of Mediterranean History (Malden, MA, 2000); William V. Harris, ed., Rethinking the
Mediterranean (Oxford, 2005); Chris Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe
and the Mediterranean, 400–800 (Oxford, 2006).