Alghero is an Italian city of 42 396 inhabitants, constitutive of
the metropolitan network of Northern Sardinia in the province of
Sassari, in Sardinia. It is also known as the Sardinian Barceloneta,
or "little Barcelona": the city has in fact preserved the use of
Catalan, of which it is a linguistic island and 22.4% of its
inhabitants speak it in the Alghero variant, recognized by the
Republic of Italy and the Region of Sardinia as a minority language.
This language is receiving protection through teaching and official
use programs within the municipal area. A delegation from the
Generalitat de Catalunya, the regional government of Catalonia, also
has its institutional headquarters in Alghero.
The city, one
of the largest in Sardinia and fifth in the region by number of
inhabitants, is one of the gateways to the island, thanks to the
airport located near Fertilia. It is the capital of the Riviera del
Corallo, a name that derives from the fact that in the waters of its
bay there is the largest quantity of the precious red coral of the
finest quality, fished by underwater coral, an activity that with
its processing and sale, for centuries it had a great economic and
cultural importance, so much so that a coral branch is included in
the coat of arms of the city. It has a strong tourist vocation and
is one of the main destinations on the island; in 2012 it was the
10th most visited Italian city by foreign tourists.
Alghero
is the third university city of Sardinia after Sassari and Cagliari,
with the headquarters of the Department of Architecture, Design and
Urban Planning of the University of Sassari. It is also home to the
Alghero School for Foreigners of Italian Language and Culture.
Ancient era
The territory of Alghero begins its history during
the Neolithic. The Green Grotto, a submerged cave on the promontory
of Capo Caccia, has been the subject of frequentation since the
ancient Neolithic (VI-V millennium BC): the ceramics found belong to
the local facies called "Filestru-Grotta Verde", with globular
vessels or piriform with convex bottom and with impressed
decoration, partly of the cardial type. Other ceramic fragments
belong to the Bonu Ighinu culture, of the Middle Neolithic (V-IV
millennium BC).
For the phase of the recent Neolithic (3500
BC-2700 BC) there are underground tombs such as the domus de janas
in groups or in necropolis, including the necropolis of Anghelu
Ruju, belonging to the culture of Ozieri.
The numerous finds
(vases, statuettes of mother goddess, weapons, necklace vague and
more) allow us to ascribe the necropolis to the final Neolithic
(culture of Ozieri 3200-2800 BC) and attest its use up to the Copper
and Bronze (cultures of Abealzu-Filigosa, of Monte Claro, of the
bell-shaped vase and following the culture of Bonnanaro of the
ancient bronze age c.1800-1600 BC), to which the burial of Monte San
Giuliano belongs.
In the Nuragic age, the Alghero area was
heavily populated with 90 identified nuraghi (density of 0.40 per
km²), about one third of which have now disappeared. Most are
single-towered and all are built of local stone, such as limestone,
sandstone, and trachyte. There are also several villages, for the
most part connected to the nuraghi, where proto-Corinthian and
Phoenician ceramics have been found, testifying to the commercial
relations maintained with other Mediterranean regions. For burials,
the tombs of the giants are scarce, only five perhaps following the
reuse of the older Domus de Janas. The hypogean necropolis of Santu
Pedru and the continuation of that of Anghelu Ruju, and the nuragic
villages of Palmavera and Sant'Imbenia belong to this phase.
The Phoenician presence is scarce, linked to the Punic-Roman
necropolis of Sant'Imbenia, as in the whole of northern Sardinia and
in Roman times life continues without apparent solution of
continuity. Some rustic villas are witnessed near the nuraghi, such
as the Roman villa of Santa Imbenia. Ex-voto from the Roman period
and concrete basins attest to the continuation of the cult at a
nuragic sacred well in the locality of "La Purissima". The Roman
bridge of Fertilia on the canal that connects the Calich pond to the
sea, originally with 24 arches, connected the Ninpheus Portus with
the Roman station of Carbia and was renovated in medieval times. In
2007, on the slopes of Monte Carru, a hill adjacent to the La
Purissima locality, a necropolis with over 400 tombs datable between
the republican and imperial periods came to light.
The birth
of today's city of Alghero is traditionally traced back to the early
12th century, when the noble Genoese Doria family was allowed to
found the first historical nucleus on the unguarded coast of the
curatoria of Nulauro in the Giudicato of Torres. It is uncertain
whether any previous settlement was present, perhaps linked to the
events of the Saracen raids. According to some scholars, including
the archaeologist of the University of Sassari Marco Milanese, the
foundation of the city by the Dorias would however be postdated by
about 150 years, around the middle of the 13th century.
The
strategic position and the presence of a rich aquifer, testified by
the wells still present in some houses, allowed the growth of the
city and increased its strategic importance. For about a century, it
remained in the orbit of the maritime republic; in 1283, the Pisans
managed to conquer it and held it until 1284, when, after the Pisan
defeat of Meloria, the Dorias returned to Alghero.
After the
terrible epidemic of black plague that also struck Sardinia in 1347,
in 1350 some descendants of the Doria sold their rights to Pietro IV
of Aragon, who was territorially building the newborn Kingdom of
Sardinia, while the remaining descendants ceded their rights to the
Republic of Genoa in 1353: this inevitably led to a clash between
the two factions, Aragonese on the one hand, Genoese, later allied
with the Arboreans, on the other.
Alghero is located in the north-western part of Sardinia, inside the homonymous bay. Most of the territory north of the urban area is occupied by the Nurra plain. In the extreme north-west fringe rise the karst systems of Capo Caccia, Punta Giglio and Monte Doglia. Proceeding south of the city you can see a territory formed mostly by volcanites that go to form the plateaus of Villanova Monteleone and Bosa, from the last of which some waterways originate that have favored agriculture.
The Mediterranean climate of Alghero is certainly mild due to the
presence of the sea which mitigates the temperatures especially in
winter. To the north of the city there are also two meteorological
observatories, where short and medium term forecasts are made for
the entire northern part of Sardinia; the weather situation is also
measured hour by hour and sent to the main national and regional
information bodies (Teletext, Radio, TV, other weather centers).
From a legislative point of view, the municipality of Alghero falls
into the climatic zone C as the city's degree days are 1001,
therefore the maximum limit allowed for switching on the heaters is
10 hours a day from 15 November to 31 March.
The name of the city has uncertain derivations, but the most
accredited hypothesis is that it comes from Aleguerium (alga), due
to the considerable amount of Posidonia Oceanica that settles on its
sandy coast.
Thus wrote Alberto Ferrero Della Marmora in
1839:
«The name of Alghero seems to come from aliga (“ seaweed,
sea grass ”), which would have been transformed into S'Alighera (“
Place of the Seaweed ”), which is the name of the city in the
language of the surrounding villagers. They usually speak the
Sardinian dialect of Logodoro, a little altered; but the inhabitants
of the city, without by now being "thoroughbred" Catalans, have
nevertheless kept their language more or less intact; it is this
language, limited to the walls of Alghero, which speak to each
other, even though they all understand and know the Sardinian
language. "
(Alberto Ferrero Della Marmora, Voyage en
Sardaigne, Turin-Paris, 1839)
On the other hand, another
thesis is devoid of any foundation, which supposes the origin from
the Arabic algèr and its similarity with Algiers, capital of
Algeria, traced back to the fact that the Muslim pirates (who had
their stronghold in Algiers) historically have also frequented the
coasts of Sardinia with frequent raids and raids, which lasted until
the end of the eighteenth century. In fact, the Saracens, despite
many attempts, never managed to settle in Sardinia.
Another
etymology is not to be discarded which places its name close to the
Sardinian term aliga, that is garbage, with reference to the smell
of rotting algae. The etymology of the Sardinian aliga is however
the same as that of Alghero, as indicated by the DES (Sardinian
Etymological Dictionary) by Max Leopold Wagner, so it is more likely
a common derivation of the two terms from the name given to algae.