308 Milanese
so at the onset of the early modern era, earning the title of royal city in 1501
and being promoted to an enlarged diocese by Pope Julius II in 1503.130 The ar-
chaeological evidence of medieval commerce in Sardinia and Alghero, like the
written sources, is fraught with complex problems, especially of the theoretical
sort, in terms of construction, preservation, interpretation, and proper usage.
Each of these phases leads to the scattering of data and a reduction in the
initial potential value of the evidence uncovered. However, archaeological ma-
terial (particularly ceramic finds) has not received sufficient attention (even
in Sardinia) as a source for the history of medieval, and especially Spanish,
commerce.131 Iberian majolica, produced in Catalonia and Valencia, has been
discovered in Sardinia, but even though most of the material has been recov-
ered through digging, visual description and typology have dominated the
field, wherein qualitative attention to individual finds is prevalent. The incli-
nation to study typology has nevertheless been combined with elements of
historical interpretation and occasionally with topographical examination of
the distribution of decorated Catalan and Valencian ceramics on Sardinian
territory, although weaknesses persist when it comes to gathering contextual
information.132 In this respect it is important to mention Hugo Blake’s studies
of the most well known Mediterranean sites with Spanish medieval pottery,
the “Pula Group,”133 as well as the research of Alberto Garcìa Porras on the
dissemination of glazed Spanish pottery in Italy and its chrono-typological
characteristics.134 Since the 1970s, various scholars have made observations on
Sardinia’s late medieval Spanish ceramic bacini, but the task of systematically
studying them has fallen to Michelle Hobart, Maria Francesca Porcella, and
130 A. Mattone and P. Sanna, Per una storia economica e civile, p. 738.
131 M. Milanese and A. Carlini, Ceramiche invetriate nella Sardegna nord-occidentale e negli
scavi di Alghero.
132 M. Dadea and M.F. Porcella, “La diffusione della ceramica spagnola in Sardegna: impor-
tazioni e tentativi di imitazioni locali,” in Transferencies i comerc de ceràmica a l’Europa
mediterrània (segles XIV–XVII), XV Jornades d’Estudis Historics Local (Palma, 1997), p. 231.
133 H. Blake, “The Ceramic Hoard from Pula (Prov. Cagliari) and the Pula Type of Spanish
Lustreware,” in II Coloquio ceramica Medieval del Mediterraneo Occidental (Toledo, 1981),
pp. 365–407.
134 A. Garcìa Porras, “La cerámica española importada en Italia durante el siglo XIV. El efecto
de la demanda sobre una producción cerámica en los inicios de su despegue comercial,”
in Archeologia Medievale, XXVII (2000), pp. 131–144; A. Garcìa “La cerámica en azul y do-
rado valenciana del siglo XIV e inicios del XV,” in Museo Nacional de Ceràmica, Materiales
y Documentos. Colecciòn, 3 (Valencia, 2008).