368 Milanese
Figure 14.3 Drawing of Alghero’s fortification by Giorgio Paleari (1573).
on the traces of the sixteenth-century (or later) fortifications,23 with the excep-
tion of two excavations, conducted in the area of the fortress of Maddalena
and that of San Giacomo, which have made it possible to trace stretches
of the wall dating to the city’s Genoese era (ca. 1260–1354) and subsequent
Catalan period.
An extensive stratigraphic excavation of the fortress of San Giacomo dem-
onstrated the functional dynamics and transformation of the Catalan wall be-
tween its erection in the second half of the fourteenth century, and the final
decades of the sixteenth century (Fig. 14.4). The late medieval walls were not
23 The fortress of San Giacomo (1997–1999; 2001); the Torre di San Giacomo (2004); the wall
between the Torre di San Giacomo and the fortress of the Sperone (2005–2006; 2010); the
ravelin of the Sperone (2005–2006); the fortress of Montalbano (2004–2005); Ponte della
Città tra i Bastioni di Montalbano e Maddalena (2006); and Bastione della Maddalena
(2004). For a general presentation of the area of intervention, see Marco Milanese,
“Archeologia Postmedievale e Storia Moderna. Ricerche sulle piazzeforti spagnole della
Sardegna nord-occidentale,” in Contra moros y turcos: politiche e sistemi di difesa degli
stati della corona di Spagna in Età moderna: Convegno internazionale di studi, Villasimius-
Baunei, 20–24 settembre 2005, ed. B. Anatra (Cagliari, 2008), pp. 569–620; Marco Milanese,
“Archeologia e progetto urbano: le fortificazioni di Alghero,” Archeologia Urbana ad
Alghero 2 (2011).