366 Milanese
had recognized the seignior, but the Doria still needed to control what was one
of the most important strongholds of the young territory.16
After Alghero’s transfer to Aragonese hands in 1354, Sardinians, Ligurians,
and other non-Iberians were expelled by Peter IV—particularly in a drastic
measure taken in 1372—and to ensure control over the port, Catalans and
Aragonese were encouraged to move there by concessions of goods (houses,
land), exemptions, and benefices of various kinds, known as heretas and
guiatge.17 Thus, groups of colonists arrived from Barcelona, Valencia, Tarragon,
and Majorca, seeking better fortunes. Among them were families as well as
unmarried soldiers, who the king subsidized to form new nuclear households.
All the same, malaria and plague created more than a few problems for the
demographic balance of the newly renamed L’Alguer. There were many Jewish
families amongst the Iberian population, who helped write an important page
in the history of Alghero in the Middle Ages.
3 The Walls of the City
Alghero, which was the second fortified center in Sardinia after Cagliari, is sur-
rounded by the sea on three sides. As a city, the urban quality of Alghero had
the character of a citadel, thanks to the fundamental strategic role it played for
the Genoese, Catalans, Spanish, and Piedmontese, from the thirteenth to the
eighteenth centuries.18 The total omission of any representation of its intra-
mural urban fabric in maps—which focus on the “shell” of Alghero’s sixteenth-
century defensive facility—exacerbated a recurring view among the period’s
architects and military engineers, who did not see the urban fabric as playing a
significant or in any way representative role.19
16 A realization that emerged in the pact between Genoa and the Doria in 1287, with some
concern on Genoa’s part for checking the Doria’s power in Sardinia; Giovanna Petti
Balbi, “I Doria e la politica genovese in Sardegna e in Corsica fra Duecento e Trecento,”
in Castelsardo: novecento anni di storia, eds Antonello Mattone and Alessandro Soddu
(Rome, 2007), p. 271.
17 Castellaccio, “Mura e torri defensive,” p. 402.
18 “A fortress in the form of a city,” according to the definition of Alghero provided by Ilario
Principe, “Le città nella storia d’Italia,” in Sassari, Alghero, Castelsardo, Porto Torres (Rome,
1983), p. 51. This formula was deemed reductive by Giovanni Oliva and Giancarlo Paba,
“La struttura urbana di Alghero nel XVI e XVII secolo,” in Mattone and Sanna, Alghero, la
Catalogna, il Mediterraneo, p. 349.
19 The concept of the “city-defense machine” was likewise developed in these very same
years in the Medici program for the defense of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany; see Giacinto