254 Murgia
The attention of local ruling castes focused primarily on public appoint-
ments, the sale of offices, the possibility of obtaining pensions, property, some
gratuitous title or knighthood, or the occupation of posts within the actual feu-
dal administration. This sector’s resort to public posts, its view of commercial
activity as indecorous, and its Castilian haughtiness kept Sardinia off traffic
routes. From this point on, the exclusive attraction of the island’s market was
the export of agricultural and pastoral products. Once this belief was crystal-
lized, production began to center on intense grain cultivation, as well as wild
and transhumant grazing.
Thus, over the first half of the sixteenth century, Sardinia lost its function
as a maritime stopover and instead became a military outpost for war against
the Turks and city-states of North Africa, particularly Tunis and Algiers. It was
no coincidence that Charles V chose Sardinia as a central and secure point
for organizing military expeditions to reconquer Anatolia and North Africa,
selecting the ports of Cagliari and Alghero as sites for rounding up ships for de-
ployment. Undertakings on African soil were meant to rid not only Sicily, but
also Naples and the southern coast of Spain, of the imminent danger of Turkish
incursions.4 The expedition to conquer Algiers failed, not only due to the inex-
perience of the Spanish fleet’s commanders, but also due to the strategic acu-
men of the city’s ruler, Hasán Aga, a former Sardinian shepherd from the island
of Asinara. Captured during a coastal raid by the pirates of Barbarossa, Aga
became loyal and trustworthy to his captors and received prestigious posts in
the political Muslim hierarchy.5 In the course of the second half of the century,
after the Turks conquered La Goletta and Tunis, a considerable and alarming
gap opened in the Spanish defense system. Consequently, the king was forced
to retreat from the Anatolian and North African frontier, reinforcing the pivot
protecting the central and western Mediterranean, and thus turning Naples,
Sicily, and Malta into linchpins.
In this new political-military context, Sardinia, which up until then had
played an altogether marginal role on the Mediterranean chessboard, strained
to recover its role as a second line of defense against the North African coast. It
was from there that the feared pirate raids, which caused heavy losses among
the Spanish mercantile fleet, departed or operated under their own flag, like-
wise posing a grave danger to the coastal population.6 Sardinia too was not
4 Bruno Anatra and Francesco Manconi, eds, Sardegna, Spagna e Stati italiani nell’età di Carlo V
(Rome, 2001), pp. 335–370.
5 Ramiro Feijoo, Corsarios barberiscos. Españoles contra renegados (Barcelona, 2003), pp. 82–90.
6 Bruno Anatra, Maria Grazia Mele, Giovanni Murgia, and Giovanni Serreli, eds, Contra moros
y turcos. Politiche e sistemi di difesa degli Stati mediterranei della Corona di Spagna in Età