Cagliari 315
Villanova (see infra Cadinu chapter Fig. 19.17). The Roman and Byzantine city
were concealed under many meters of earth deposited over the centuries.5
In 1562, when the Bastion of Jesus in the town walls was built, some remains
came to light; an inscription mentioning Hercules is generally accepted as a
proof of the mythic origin of the town. The words “civitas Iole” were explained
as the etymology of the toponym Ioleapola, Leapola, Lappola, used until the
medieval period for the harbor district.6 Some scholars believe that these
archaeological discoveries were related to the Roman period, however, they
probably referred to the late antique phase of Kalaris.
In 1580 Giovanni Francesco Fara wrote about Cagliari in his Chorographia
Sardiniae and, according to a theory diffused since the Middle Ages, he said
the town had been destroyed by Arabs and rebuilt over its ruins as a new city,
on the hill called “promontorio cagliaritano,” from where there was a good view
of the gulf.7
Monserrat Rossellò, a lawyer from Cagliari, died in 1613. He was very knowl-
edgeable about the history of the town and donated all his books to the library
of the Compagnia di Gesu, which had arrived in Cagliari around 50 years earlier
(1564). According to a popular tradition, it is believed that Saint Restituta was
the mother of the Bishop Eusebio, and she lived in a cave named after her in
the district of Stampace. Unfortunately, in 1607, Monserrat Rossellò with the
help of Salvatore Mostellino excavated the site and depleted it, using nonsci-
entific methods.8
At the beginning of the seventeenth century, when Sardinia was still part of
the Spanish kingdom, the two cities of Cagliari and Sassari competed to gain
privileges for economic purposes. Both cities used their ancient local legacies
to show their antiquity, particularly by counting who had the largest number
of martyrs. This macabre race led to the desecration of the local cemeteries
in both Cagliari and Sassari. In Cagliari a number of burials were dug out and
the skeletons removed to become martyrs. One body in particular was claimed
to be that of a saint, near the martyrium of Saint Saturninus. This skeleton
was attributed to Saint Lucifero, the bishop of Cagliari in the middle of fourth
5 Marcello M. Cocco, Sigismondo Arquer: dagli studi giovanili all’autodafé (Cagliari, 1987),
pp. 409–410 and plate III.
6 Mauro Dadea, “I primi passi dell’archeologia in Sardegna. Esperienze di scavo e ritrovamenti
epigrafici a Cagliari nel XVI secolo,” Archeologia Postmedievale 5, pp. 267–268.
7 Giovanni Francesco Fara, In Sardiniae Chorographiam, ed. Enzo Cadoni (Sassari, 1992),
pp. 205–207.
8 Enzo Cadoni, Maria Teresa Laneri, Umanisti e cultura classica nella Sardegna del ‘500. 3.
L’inventario dei beni e dei libri di Monserrat Rosselló, I (Sassari, 1994), pp. 25–26.