Cagliari (Casteddu in Sardinian) is an Italian town of 152,473
inhabitants, the capital of the autonomous region of Sardinia. Its
metropolitan city has 430 723 inhabitants.
University and
archbishopric and city with a thousand-year history, it is the
historical administrative center of the island having been, under
the name of Caralis, the capital of the province of Sardinia et
Corsica during the Roman period and subsequently the capital of the
Kingdom of Sardinia, from 1324 to 1720 , and then from 1798 to 1814.
Its port is classified "international" because of its importance;
carries out commercial, industrial, tourist and passenger service
functions.
Cagliari overlooks the center of the Gulf of Angels,
on the southern coast of Sardinia. The city, which develops around
the hill of the historic Castello district, is bordered to the east
by the Sella del Diavolo and the Molentargius pond, to the west by
the Cagliari pond, to the south by the Tyrrhenian Sea and to the
north by the hill of San Michele and the plain of the Campidano.
It has in common with Rome, Lisbon, Prague and Istanbul the fact
that it was built on seven limestone hills that identify as many
city districts: Castello, Tuvumannu / Tuvixeddu, Monte Claro, Monte
Urpinu, Colle di Bonaria, Colle di San Michele, Calamosca / Saddle
of the Devil. To these must be added the more bas-reliefs of
Montixeddu, Monte Mixi and Cuccuru 'e Serra.
The city is in
fact characterized by hilly areas, where the historic districts
arise, and by flat areas, where most of the neighborhoods that have
arisen since the nineteenth century are located.
The city's climate is typically Mediterranean, with mild winters and
hot, dry summers. The extreme summer values sometimes slightly
exceed 40 ° C (sometimes with very high humidity levels), while the
winter ones, only in particular and rare conditions, drop slightly
below zero. Winds are frequent, especially the mistral and the
sirocco; in summer the sirocco sea breeze (called s'imbattu in
Cagliari) lowers the temperature and makes the heat more tolerable.
According to the Cagliari Elmas Meteorological Station, the average
annual temperature is around 17.7 ° C, but inside the city,
especially the minimum temperatures are a few degrees higher.
The last snowfall with accumulation was recorded in January
1993.
The long history and the various dominations and influences coming
from outside have contributed to giving the city an important cultural
and architectural heritage.
As regards the most ancient
historical periods, the necropolis of Tuvixeddu, from the Punic age, and
the Roman amphitheater, dating back to the 2nd century, are worth
mentioning.
The medieval heart of the city is the fortified
district of Castello, which until the Second World War was the residence
of the nobles. Also noteworthy are the historic districts of Stampace,
Marina and Villanova. The first was the neighborhood of the bourgeois
and merchants, the second was the neighborhood of fishermen and sailors,
the third that of shepherds and farmers.
Churches
Among the numerous churches present in Cagliari we can
mention:
Basilica of San Saturnino: It represents the oldest church
in Sardinia of which we know; built in the 5th century and remodeled in
the Romanesque age, it was recently renovated and reconsecrated.
Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta: Built as a castle during the first
half of the 13th century, it was elevated to the rank of Cathedral in
1258. Originally in Pisan Romanesque style, it has undergone various
renovations over the centuries.
Church of San Michele:
Seventeenth-century baroque style church located in the Stampace
district
Collegiate Church of Sant'Anna: An important example of
Baroque architecture, it is located in Stampace and dates back to the
late 18th century.
Sanctuary of Our Lady of Bonaria: Complex
consisting of the small fourteenth-century sanctuary and the basilica
built in the eighteenth century.
Seminars
Archbishop's
Seminary of Cagliari: originally located at Palazzo Belgrano in the
Castello district, it now stands on the slopes of Colle San Michele.
Pontifical Sardinian Regional Seminary: located in the Is Mirrionis
district a short distance from the Archbishop's Seminary, it welcomes
seminarians coming from the island in preparation for the priestly
order.
Monumental cemeteries
Monumental cemetery of Bonaria:
Considered as one of the most important monumental cemeteries in Europe
by the Association of Significant Cemeteries in Europe[79] it houses the
remains of several illustrious Cagliaritans as well as the sculptural
works of various Sardinian and peninsula artists operating in Sardinia
in the nineteenth century and twentieth century.
Royal Palace: Built in the Aragonese era, until 1847 it was the
residence of the viceroys and, on some occasions, of the Kings of the
Kingdom of Sardinia.
City Palace: It was the municipal seat of the
city of Cagliari from the Aragonese period until the early twentieth
century.
Palazzo Boyl: Neoclassical style noble palace located in the
Castello district and dating back to the mid-nineteenth century.
Art
Nouveau buildings: Series of buildings built between the 19th and 20th
centuries commissioned by the growing entrepreneurial bourgeoisie of
Cagliari, among the most significant examples we can mention the
Palazzata of Via Roma, Palazzo Valdés, Palazzo Balletto, Palazzo
Merello, Palazzo Accardo; or had them built by exponents of Cagliari
culture, such as Villa Atzeri, in viale Regina Elena, commissioned by
the then dean of the Faculty of Law as well as professor of civil law at
the University of Cagliari.
University Palace: From the Savoy era, it
houses the rectorate and the university library.
Palazzo Vivanet:
Neo-Gothic style building built at the end of the 19th century is
located in Via Roma opposite the train station.
New civic building:
Current municipal headquarters, it was completed in 1907 and is named
after Ottone Bacaredda. The eclectic style of the building recalls
Gothic-Catalan and Art Nouveau models.
Palazzo Fadda-Tonini: built in
the 1930s, in 2002 it was classified as an "important" building.
Castle of San Michele: The fortified building stands on the hill of
the same name and represents one of the few examples of architecture
dating back to the Judicial period that have survived to the present
day.
Pisan walls and towers (Torre dell'Elefante, Torre di San
Pancrazio, Torre dello Sperone, Torre dell'Aquila): Fortification works
carried out by the Pisans between the 13th and 14th centuries.
Fortino di Sant'Ignazio: Savoy fort from the last years of the 18th
century
The Bastion of Saint Remy: It was built at the end of the
19th century on the ancient walls of the city, dating back to the
beginning of the 14th century, connecting the three southern bastions of
the Zecca, Santa Caterina and Sperone, to unite the Castello district
with those below of Villanova and Marina.
Roman amphitheater: Built during the imperial age, it could hold
10,000 spectators and hosted gladiatorial fights and theatrical
performances.
Necropolis of Tuvixeddu: It is the largest existing
Punic necropolis and stands on the hill of the same name. In addition to
the Punic tombs, there are also Roman tombs.
Villa di Tigellio:
complex of ruins from the Roman era.
Viper Cave: tomb of the Roman
matron Atilia Pomptilla dating back to the 2nd century.
Wetlands
The Cagliari pond (3,000 hectares of surface area) to the
west and the Molentargius-Saline regional natural park to the east (17.6
km²), recognized as wetlands protected by various regional and European
community laws, offer asylum to notable colonies of flamingos that have
nested there for years, creating an environment similar to that of the
French Camargue. While a tourism and environmental revaluation plan has
been implemented for the Molentargius body of water, with reclamation
and opening of part of the park to the public, in Santa Gilla there is
still a situation in many points of degradation, with part of the pond
buried in 1980 for the construction of the Canal Port.
Parks
Below is a list of the most important city parks:
San Michele Hill
Park (253,000 m²)
Monte Claro Park (250000 m²)
Monte Urpinu Park
(247000 m²)
Terramaini Park (127000 m²)
Music Park (50000 m²)
Botanical Garden (50000 m²)
Park of the former Pirri glass factory
(25,000 m²)
Public gardens (17000 m²)
Garden under the walls (6500
m²)
Capuchin Garden (8000 m²)
Remembrance Park
CIPLA Park
Siro Vannelli Park
Bonaria Park
Molentargius-Saline natural park
(16000000 m²)
Santa Gilla Lagoon (13500000 m²)
Beaches
Poetto (Su Poettu in Sardinian) is the main beach of Cagliari which
extends for about eight kilometres, from the Sella del Diavolo to the
coast of Quartu Sant'Elena.
Another popular beach is the small
beach of Calamosca located in the stretch of sea between the Capo
Sant'Elia area and Poetto.
The name Karali, according to
Max Leopold Wagner ascribable to the protosardo, is composed of a
root * kar and the suffix -ali and finds comparisons with the
toponyms Carale di Austis, Carallai di Sorradile, Caraglio of
Corsica, Caralis of Panfilia and Isauria and Caralitis of Pisidia.
The root "kar" in the ancient Mediterranean languages meant "stone
/ rock" and the suffix "al" gave collective value; Karali would thus
be formed, which would mean "rocky location".
Cagliari was
called Krly by the Phoenician-Punic while in Latin it was Caralis or
in the plural Carales; this last plural form is attested for the
first time in the Bellum Africanum and according to a
historical-linguistic interpretation it could be connected to the
existence, in the first Roman period, of two distinct communities:
the older one of the old Punic city and the more recent one
represented by the Roman-Italic immigrants of the vicus munitus
Caralis (quoted by Publio Terenzio Varrone), then merged during the
second century BC
During the Giudicale period the city center
became the village of Santa Igia (contraction of Santa Cecilia).
With the arrival of the Pisans (1216/1217) and the destruction of
Santa Igia (1258), Cagliari was identified in the documents of the
time as Castellum Castri de Kallari and, subsequently, as Castell de
Càller in Catalan. The current toponym Cagliari derives from the
Spanish pronunciation of Callari. In Sardinian the current name
Casteddu would come from the identification of the city with the
fortified district of Castello, built during the Pisan domination.
Legend, narrated by the Latin writer Gaius Julius Solinus, has it that Caralis was founded by Aristaeus, son of the god Apollo and the nymph Cyrene, who arrived in Sardinia from Boeotia in the 15th century BC. about. Aristaeus introduced hunting and agriculture to Sardinia, reconciled the indigenous populations who were fighting among themselves and founded the city of Caralis, over which he later reigned. According to some sources, Aristaeus was accompanied to Sardinia by Daedalus, who, according to the ancient Greeks, was the creator of the imposing Dedalean works (the nuraghi) present on the island.
Some domus de janas and remains of huts from the 4th - 3rd millennium
BC. discoveries in San Bartolomeo and on the hill of Sant'Elia confirm
that the area where today's city stands has been inhabited since the
Neolithic period; the resources of the sea, the ponds and the fertile
soil of the Campidanese plain guaranteed the sustenance of the
populations of the pre-Nuragic period. The finds of the Monte Claro
culture date back to the Copper Age, which spread throughout Sardinia
and takes its name from the hill of the same name in Cagliari.
Archaeological finds from the Bronze Age, such as the Aegean ceramics
found in the Antigori nuraghe near Sarroch, lead us to hypothesize that
the Nuragic populations settled in today's Cagliari area had intense
commercial and cultural relations with the Mycenaeans and are evidence
that its ports already enjoyed then of life and acquaintances; the same
myth of Aristaeus on the foundation of Caralis could have been born, in
a later era, from the distant memory of these ancient interactions
between Sardinians and Greeks.
The Phoenicians, who frequented
the ports of Cagliari and other areas of Sardinia since the 8th century
BC, or in any case before the foundation of Rome, settled at the mouth
of the Santa Gilla pond. The Roman poet Claudius Claudian of the 4th
century, describing Karalis, says it "Tyrio fundata potenti" or founded
by the powerful Tire (in today's Lebanon) and archaeological data have
confirmed the Phoenician presence in the period of the so-called
"thalassocracy" of Tyre. Passed to the Carthaginians in the 6th century
BC, the city experienced rapid development, evidenced among other things
by the necropolis of Tuvixeddu, considered the largest Punic necropolis
in the Mediterranean.
Having become the main center of the
island, now largely under the influence of Carthage, it passed to the
Romans with all of Sardinia and Corsica, in 238 BC, in the aftermath of
the First Punic War. In the following centuries the Roman Karalis
maintained its role as a Sardinian metropolis and in 46 BC. Caesar
rewarded her for supporting him in the clash with Pompey by granting her
the legal status of a municipality. Upon Caesar's death the citizens
remained faithful to him and took the side of his adopted son Octavian
against Sextus Pompey. After Octavian's victory, in the imperial age
there was a long period of political tranquility and great economic
development. The appearance of the town underwent numerous changes
during the long Roman domination, of which the amphitheater and suburban
villas such as the so-called Villa di Tigellio are notable remains.
In the mid-5th century the city fell under the occupation of the
Vandals of Africa, commanded by King Genseric. Caralis remained part of
the Vandal kingdom for about eighty years, briefly becoming the capital
of an independent Sardinian kingdom proclaimed by the rebel Germanic
official Goda. It was reconquered by the Eastern Romans of Justinian in
534 AD. and entered the Byzantine administrative system as the seat of
the principal, an imperial official at the head of all of Sardinia,
subjected to the exarchate of Africa. During the Gothic war, which raged
in the peninsula, Ostrogothic contingents occupied the city for a short
period which then passed back into Byzantine hands. In 599 AD Agilulf's
Lombard fleet carried out a plundering raid on the Cagliari coast but
was repelled by the local militias.
With the division of the island into four states called Giudicati,
the city, which had been in a very strong demographic recession for
centuries and now reduced to the village of Santa Igia or Santa Gilla,
remained at the head of the Giudicato which took its name. Meanwhile it
had suffered centuries of Saracen incursions, countered from the
beginning of the 11th century with the help of the naval powers of Pisa
and Genoa. The progressive interference that the two maritime cities
exercised on Sardinia from then on is well known. The Giudicato of
Cagliari, since its most ancient attestations, returned to the orbit of
the Pisans and the Genoese; they were the first to end up taking it
over. In 1215, a year after the death of the judge Guglielmo I Salusio
IV, faced with the possibility of an alliance between the new judge
Benedetta and Genoa, the Pisan Lamberto Visconti di Eldizio, husband of
Elena di Gallura, obtained, with the threat of weapons, the transfer of
the hill that would have been called Castello: in fact, almost as a
guard of the judicial capital, an entirely Pisan fortified city was soon
built there: the Castellum Castri de Kallari (1216/1217). Upon
Benedetta's death, she was succeeded by her sister Agnese as regent for
her son William II Salusio V.
In 1257 the new pro-Ligurian ruler
William III-Salusio VI drove the Pisans out of the fortress of Castel di
Castro, ceded the previous year to the municipality of Genoa by his
predecessor Giovanni Torchitorio V. This ignited the wrath of Pisa and
the other three Sardinian Giudicati filopisans who immediately attacked
William. On 20 July 1258, after a year of war, Santa Igia was destroyed
by the coalition led by Gherardo and Ugolino della Gherardesca,
Guglielmo di Capraia, Giovanni Visconti and Admiral Ottone Gualduccio
and salt was spread on its ruins; Judge Guglielmo managed to escape to
Genoa where he died in the same year. Thus came to an end the Giudicato
of Cagliari which was dismembered into three parts: the northern part
was annexed by the Giudicato of Arborea, the eastern part by the
Giudicato of Gallura, the western area was assigned to the Della
Gherardesca family, while the municipality of Pisa retained the
government of Castel di Castro, considered "the key to the
Mediterranean". Since then the Castellum Castri was identified with
Cagliari itself, as still shown by the current Sardinian name of the
city, Castéddu. Nonetheless, the suburbs of Stampace (a toponym that is
also found in Pisa) and Villanova were formed around it; in these
appendices the Sardinian refugees of Santa Igia found asylum, excluded
from the Castle, directly dependent on Pisa, which had a municipal
system regulated by the Breve Castelli Castri de Kallari; the port of
Bagnaria, connected to Castello by the fortified Marina district, was
instead regulated by the Brief portus kallaretani.
In July 1270,
the Christian army under the command of King Louis IX of France stopped
for about a week in the port of Cagliari in Pisa, as it was preparing to
participate in the Eighth Crusade against the Muslims of Tunisia.
Only a few decades passed and another domination came. This time it
was the Aragonese who, in their war of conquest of Sardinia (1323-1326),
besieging Cagliari, built their stronghold on another hill, even more
southern: that of Bonaria. However, they did not destroy the enemy city,
as the Pisans had done with Santa Gilla; but rather, having obtained the
victory in the battle of Lucocisterna, they left the Castle as a fiefdom
in Pisa. The Tuscans, however, could not stand the competition of the
new Aragonese village of Bonaria, with its flourishing port: the
following year they took up arms again but were again defeated by the
Aragonese in a naval battle which took place in the Gulf of Angels
between 26 and 29 December 1325 and therefore they had to abandon the
Castle forever while their homes were reassigned to subjects of the
crown of Aragon, mainly Catalans who had moved from Bonaria. The Pisans
(the so-called pullini) were however allowed to continue to reside in
the Marina and in the other annexes.
Under Iberian domination
Càller (Cagliari), an unsubjugated royal city and seat of the viceroy,
was equipped with a municipal code modeled on that of Barcelona and
became the capital of the new kingdom. The Castle, reserved for the new
Catalan-Aragonese rulers, was forbidden, for reasons of military
security, to foreigners and then also to Sardinians from 1333 (a ban
that would last until the 16th century); the port district, the Pisan
Bagnaria now known as La Pola, was strengthened and expanded. Some
families of Iberian origin who settled in Cagliari at that time are
still present in the city; among the various we can mention the
Aymerich, the Amat, the Manca, the Canelles and the Sanjust.
On
15 February 1355 Peter IV of Aragon established the kingdom's parliament
in Cagliari.
Having conquered Pisan Sardinia and incorporated the Malaspina
possessions, the kingdom had to face first the Doria family and then
Mariano IV of Arborea who, starting from 1353, had unleashed the revolt
against the Aragonese, so that the royal territory was reduced to the
city of Cagliari alone and Alghero while the remaining part became part
of the Giudicato of Arborea, the only island state entity that remained
independent. This situation continued in alternating phases until 1409
when a new Aragonese military expedition, led by Martin I of Sicily,
defeated the Arborensians and allies in the battle of Sanluri, meaning
that starting from 1420, following the transfer of the remaining
territories of the Giudicato of Arborea, the territory of the kingdom of
Sardinia, with its capital in Caller, coincided for the first time with
that of the entire island.
With the marriage of Ferdinand II of
Aragon and Isabella of Castile (1469) there was the union between the
Kingdom of Castile and León and the Crown of Aragon (of which the
Kingdom of Sardinia was part), which however maintained distinct
institutions .
In 1535 Emperor Charles V of Habsburg launched a
large naval expedition against Tunis; before leaving for Africa the
fleet carried out a final gathering in Cagliari, the sovereign's visit
to the city is remembered by an epigraph in Latin placed above the
portal of the former City Palace and by a pulpit now located in the
atrium of the church of San Michele. During the same century the
fortifications were strengthened with the construction of the bastions
and the rights and benefits of the Catalan-Aragonese were extended to
all citizens. At the time (mid-16th century) Cagliari, one of the many
cities of an endless and continually expanding empire, had just over
10,000 inhabitants while Barcelona had around 30,000 and Madrid around
20,000. The population, although small, was rather international, in
fact communities from Spain (present in Cagliari for two centuries now),
from the Republic of Genoa (who founded the Archconfraternity of the
Genoese) and from other ancient Italian and European states were found
in the city; the most spoken language was Catalan although Sardinian was
widely understood.
Intellectual life was relatively lively and
the University was founded in the 17th century (1607). However, little
by little the city, although strongly Hispanicized especially in its
managerial and institutional fabric, began to express a certain
intolerance for Iberian domination: a feeling that culminated in the
assassination of the viceroy Camarassa (1668). Thus in 1708, during the
War of the Spanish Succession, the people of Cagliari did not resist the
Anglo-Dutch siege, which put an end to the Spanish era. Following the
Treaty of Utrecht, the European territories of the Spanish Empire were
dismembered and the kingdom of Sardinia was arbitrarily assigned first
to Austria in 1713, and subsequently, after the ephemeral occupation of
Cardinal Giulio Alberoni who was trying to reconquer Sardinia to the
Spanish (1717), Cagliari, as decided at the Treaty of The Hague of 1720,
passed with the entire Kingdom under the dominion of Savoy on 8 August
1720. The age of reforms that followed throughout Europe saw the
reorganization of the University , the hospital, the State Archives and
the university library and the creation of a school of surgery and the
royal printing house. However, even the Piedmontese were not well
tolerated. And after Cagliari had resisted the naval siege of the
revolutionary French (1793), the Sardinians saw their request for
greater autonomy and respect for ancient privileges rejected, the city
rose up on 27-28 April 1794 (today celebrated as «Sa die de sa
Sardigna"), and temporarily drove out the Piedmontese; but the revolt,
swallowed up by an anti-feudal uprising in the rest of the island, was
resolved without consequences.
Cagliari, reoccupied, became from 1798 to 1814, as well as the
capital, the political-administrative center of the Kingdom of Sardinia
and hosted in the Royal Palace (called Viceregio) the Savoy court,
expelled from Turin by the French, who had established the Piedmontese
Republic, while they had not been able to conquer Sardinia. The presence
of the court in the city did not prevent the onset of various uprisings
against the Savoys, the most important of which is called the Palabanda
revolt, from the name of the locality where the villa where it was
organized was located. In these years we witnessed a great development
of the city: in 1811 the first public lighting was installed and the
road network was improved. However, periods of famine followed by a
fever epidemic (1816) also occurred. In 1847, as in Sassari, a popular
movement, starting from the university, led King Charles Albert to
recognize the merger of the island with the mainland Sardinian states
(Duchy of Savoy, Duchy of Genoa).
With the new war techniques in
Cagliari, deprived of its role as a stronghold following the
proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, the walls were demolished and the
foundations were laid for the great expansion of the last century.
Attracted by the many unexpressed potentials, numerous entrepreneurs
(especially Ligurian, Piedmontese, Swiss and French) settled in Cagliari
in this period and encouraged the city's reorganization by importing the
first forms of industrialization; thus occurs the transition from an
Ancien Régime society to a capitalist type society. Sardinian (and
non-Sardinian) architects, including Gaetano Cima and Dionigi Scano,
redesigned the urban center according to the tastes of the time; the
neoclassical and neo-Gothic style imposes itself, the characteristic Art
Nouveau buildings arise.
On 14 April 1899, the first stone of the town hall in via Roma was
laid, in the presence of King Umberto I, whose works would end in 1907:
this event gave an almost symbolic start to the new century, with the
transfer of city power from the old district of Castello to the modern
area near the Port, a place of trade and commerce. The palace is among
the works created by the administration of Ottone Bacaredda, mayor of
Cagliari from 1889 to 1921 almost continuously, recognized as one of the
most enlightened mayors of the city. On 14 May 1906, strikes against the
high cost of living broke out in Cagliari, causing two deaths and
several injuries.
In 1924 the Mussolini government launched the
so-called Billion Law, allocating more than a billion lire for the
modernization of Sardinia, a large part of which will go to Cagliari.
Fascism also arrives in the city with its violence, occupying the
headquarters of the opposing parties and driving out the opponents,
including Emilio Lussu who was attacked in his house in Piazza Martiri
on 31 October 1926. At the end of the twenties, with the annexation of
the municipalities of Pirri, Selargius, Quartucciu, Monserrato and,
subsequently, Elmas (1937), Cagliari reached 100,000 inhabitants. It is
in these years that important public works were built, many of which
were created by a young municipal designer, Ubaldo Badas, whose original
architecture contributed to beautifying the city both in the 1930s and
in the post-war period, such as the Parco delle Rimembranze, the
Terrapieno and part of the Public Gardens. However, thanks to the
careful administration of Enrico Endrich, a convinced but free-thinking
fascist, no public works were built in Cagliari that would upset the
original city fabric; the works planned after the end of his mandate
(1933) did not have time to be built due to the war.
During the
Second World War, Cagliari suffered numerous bombings (80% of the city
was more or less seriously affected, so much so that Cagliari was
declared a Martyr City and received a gold medal for military valor) of
which the signs can still be seen in some areas of the historic center.
The bombings began on 17 February 1943, with the arrival of around a
hundred US planes over the skies of Cagliari. Between 26 and 28 February
1943 the heaviest bombings took place, with the destruction of many
important places for Cagliari. In total, the victims of the bombings in
the city were more than 2,000.
In 1948 it officially became the
capital of Sardinia according to article 2 of the Statute of the
Autonomous Region of Sardinia. From the Second World War onwards, the
population of Cagliari grew further until it reached a maximum of around
220,000 inhabitants in 1981 and then fell drastically following the
referendums held between the mid-eighties and the beginning of the
nineties which established the autonomy of the various hamlets of the
time. fascist, municipalities strongly conurbed with the historic city
in a union that constitutes the fulcrum of the Cagliari metropolitan
area.
During the 20th century the urban center extended to the
Poetto coast and the Monte Urpinu area, giving rise to the neighborhoods
of San Benedetto, Fonsarda, Bonaria, La Vega, Tuvumannu and San Michele.
The native language of Cagliari, made co-official in the municipal
statute, is Sardinian (sardu) and to be precise Campidanese (sardu
campidanesu) in the Cagliaritan variant (casteddaju).
The
Sardinian language is known and spoken less and less by the new
generations of the area, who now largely use only the Italian one,
mostly expressed in its regional variant: in fact, over the course of
three centuries and more recently through compulsory education and the
means of mass communication, Italian has become predominant in formal
and informal social relationships, relegating Sardinian to a marginal
role; often young people have only a passive or limited competence in it
to a few stereotyped phrases, due to the relationship with elderly
relatives who still speak it, while with their parents (by choice of the
latter regarding their education) they have spoken only and always in
Italian, declined in its regional variant.
The Cagliaritan
variant of Sardinian in its high registers has traditionally represented
the linguistic model of reference for the entire central-southern area
of the island, a high diastratic variant used by the bourgeois class
throughout the Campidano domain, as well as a literary model of
reference for writers and poets.
The majority of Cagliaritans are Catholic. Among the immigrant
population there are also Orthodox and Muslim minorities. The city is
the seat of the Archdiocese of Cagliari, which has ancient origins,
although not documented, there is news of the first bishop Saint
Avendrace already around 70 AD; bishop Quintasio participated in the
Council of Arles in 314; There are 133 parishes in the territory under
its jurisdiction.
There are numerous saints and blesseds born in
Cagliari or Cagliaritans by adoption, witnesses of the Christian faith
in Cagliari and Sardinia: we remember the patron saint San Saturnino,
Sant'Efisio (to whom the most important festival is dedicated), San
Lucifero di Cagliari, Avendrace, San Mauro Martire, Ignazio da Laconi,
Salvatore da Horta, Sant'Eusebio di Vercelli and his mother Santa
Restituta, Nicola da Gesturi, Sister Giuseppina Nicoli and Sister Teresa
Tambelli, Maria Cristina of Savoy.
On 22 September 2013 the city
was the destination of one of Pope Francis' apostolic journeys; on this
occasion, more than 400,000 faithful flocked to the meeting places.
Previously Cagliari had been the destination of the pastoral visits of
Paul VI on 24 April 1970, John Paul II in October 1985 and Benedict XVI
on 7 September 2008.
Other churches present are the Evangelical
Church, the Evangelical Baptist Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints and Jehovah's Witnesses.
Cagliari and its demographic area present many peculiar
anthropological manifestations, legacies of the various peoples who have
influenced the history of the city.
There are numerous religious
festivals that the city has practiced over the centuries. Many still
take place today, while others have only been remembered in oral memory
or in literary tradition.
The Cagliari Carnival takes place in
February, a parade of masks accompanied by the rhythm of the ratantira,
with handcrafted floats and costumes that recall those of Cagliari in a
carnival style, especially that of the Panetiera. During the twentieth
century, the Carnival tradition was carried forward by the GIOC, an
association of the Italian Catholic Workers Youth, based until 2007 in
the church of Santa Restituta in Stampace. Since the association no
longer has its own headquarters, having been revoked by the then
Archbishop, the traditional event had to be temporarily suspended,
making way for a more commercial one reserved for children. Since 2017,
other associations have revived the tradition.
During the Easter
period the various arch-confraternities organize the rites of Holy Week
and Easter.
On Easter Monday there is also a procession dedicated to
Sant'Efisio, to dissolve the vow for the grace granted in 1793 when
through his intercession the French ships bombarding Cagliari were
carried away by the stormy wind. Like the other festivals dedicated to
the Warrior Saint, it is organized by the Archconfraternity of the
Gonfalone.
On May 1st, a religious and cultural event of great
importance is celebrated in Sardinia: the feast of Saint Efisio martyr,
an annual procession which takes place to fulfill the vow made to the
saint by the city during the plague epidemic of 1652. For the occasion,
dozens of groups in typical costume from all over the island, hundreds
of knights and numerous decorated carts (called traccas) pulled by oxen
are concentrated in the capital. All together they participate in the
great parade in the center of Cagliari which ends with the arrival in
Via Roma of the chariot with the statue of the saint which is then
transported to Nora to the church dedicated to him. On May 4th the
simulacrum of the saint returns late at night to his church in Cagliari.
Also in May, the celebrations for Sant'Ignazio da Laconi and San
Francesco da Paola take place, in the latter case you can follow a
suggestive procession by the sea.
In the month of July it is the turn
of the celebration with the characteristic sea procession of Our Lady of
Bonaria, for the occasion dozens of flag-flagged boats accompany the
statue of the Virgin in the waters of the port.
The assumption of
Mary is celebrated on August 15th. While in the Italian tradition the
Mother of God is depicted as a "living" creature, in Cagliari, and in
Sardinia generally, she is depicted as sleeping. The Dormitio of the
Virgin is a Byzantine tradition (for the spiritual part) and Catalan
(especially for the dressing part). On this date a procession takes
place in which the simulacrum of the Madonna is placed as if asleep on a
bed, covered by a veil.
The patron saint of the city is San
Saturnino, who is celebrated on October 30th.