Sassari (toponym in Italian and Sassari, Tàttari in Sardinian) is
an Italian town of 124574 inhabitants, capital of the homonymous
province in Sardinia.
Ancient capital of the Giudicato of
Torres and then of the Sassari republic, university, archiepiscopal
and branch of the court of appeal, second city on the island by
population, Sassari is part of a metropolitan area of about 260 000
inhabitants.
According to the regional law of 4 February
2016, n. 2, created, together with Alghero, the metropolitan network
of Northern Sardinia which also includes the municipalities of
Castelsardo, Porto Torres, Sennori, Sorso, Valledoria and Stintino.
The city of Sassari is the historical urban center
of the Capo di Sopra of the island. With its 546.08 km², it is the
largest municipality in the region and the largest in Italy after
Rome, Ravenna, Cerignola and Noto. It stands on a limestone plateau
sloping to the north-west towards the Gulf of Asinara and the plain
of Nurra, while to the south-east the terrain is mainly hilly. The
urban and suburban territory is characterized by valleys and gorges
that deeply affect the plateau on which the city lies. Horticultural
crops, olive groves and woods surround the urban center and
constitute the peculiar landscape aspect of the whole eastern sector
of the municipal area.
The Businco rock belongs to the territory
of Sassari.
Sassari enjoys a warm temperate climate of the Mediterranean type. Winters are cold but not excessively humid, summers hot and dry. Precipitation is concentrated mainly in the winter and autumn months. The rainfall data differ according to the altitude and the distance from the sea, the average in the municipal area is 588.2 mm / year, but significant differences are found in the stations located in the urban area and in particular in the southern districts, up to a maximum of 647.7 mm / year at the Serra Secca weather station, located 310 meters above sea level. Snowfalls are sporadic but not exceptional. Snowfalls are generally concentrated in the months of January and February. According to the US magazine Weatherwise, the climate of the Sassari area would be among the 10 most suitable for the human species. More precisely, it ranks 4th in the world, among the 10 cities with the most pleasant climate.
The origin remains unknown and the subject of academic speculation. The current toponym occurs from the mid-twelfth century in different forms, including Sassaris, Sassaro, Sasser, Sacer alternating with Thathari, Thathar, Táttari, being the ss-th passage in Sardinian not rare. According to Massimo Pittau it would be found in other Sardinian localities such as Sassareddu (Olbia), Sassara (Genoni), sa Sássara (Tonara), Sassái (Olbia, Silius), Sassalái (Samugheo), Sassalu (Osilo), Sassuni (Sanluri), Satzái ( Villagrande Strisaili) and would be translatable as "river pebbles" (sássari, sátzari, sátzeri, perda'e sássari, perda'e sassu, sássinu-a) from Sardian, antecedent to the Latin saxum. This is confirmed by the settlements, in the nuragic and pre-nuragic periods, in the Sassari valleys, rich in springs and streams.
Prehistory and ancient history
The territory of Sassari has
been inhabited by man since the pre-Nuragic period as evidenced by
the remains of Neolithic settlements, the numerous domus de janas,
the menhirs and the dolmen of San Bainzu Arca. The most important
and enigmatic monument of that period, however, is the megalithic
altar of Monte d'Accoddi, built by the people of the Ozieri culture
in the fourth millennium BC. and then restored in the following
millennium by the populations of the Abealzu-Filigosa culture, who
gave it the characteristic stepped appearance; the site was used as
a burial place until the ancient Bronze Age (Bonnanaro culture),
when it was already in ruins, only to be finally abandoned.
In the age of the nuraghi the Sassari territory was heavily
anthropized as demonstrated by the high number of nuragic sites,
more than 150, divided into simple and complex nuraghi, villages,
tombs of giants and sacred wells. In Roman times, the countryside of
Sassari was dotted with numerous farms owned by the landowners of
the colony of Turris Libisonis, today's Porto Torres.
The
origins of the city and the Free Municipality
The origins of the
current town of Sassari are to be found in the early Middle Ages,
when the population of the coastal city of Turris Libisonis
gradually took refuge inland, due to the raids of Saracen pirates.
Around the 11th-12th century other villas were built in its
surroundings, which later disappeared, such as Silki, Bosove, Enene
and Kiterone. It is only in 1131 that the city is mentioned for the
first time in reference to a certain Jordi de Sassaro, servant of
Bosove, while in 1135 the church of San Nicola (Sancti Nicolai de
Tathari) is mentioned. This information about the city comes from
the Condaghe of San Pietro in Silki, a medieval code written in
Logudorese and compiled from 1150 to 1180, but also containing more
ancient documents dating back to the previous century.
It was the last capital of the Giudicato di Torres, and in 1294
it became a Free Municipality, confederate to Genoa (after an
initial pro-Pisan period), following the promulgation of the
Sassaresi Statutes. This corpus of laws, drawn up both in Latin and
in Logudorese Sardinian, regulated the organization and functioning
of the city: from urban planning, to economic activities, to
justice. The Sassari statutes are one of the most important identity
documents not only for the city of Sassari, but for the entire
island. It was in this period that, disputed between the maritime
republics, Sassari acquired the first walls and towers.
Sassari, Aragonese and Spanish
At the news of the Aragonese
intervention, the city bourgeoisie approached the royals of Aragon,
presenting their delegation to the court of the infant Alfonso in
1323 and offering to be part of the nascent Kingdom of Sardinia.
Sassari at the time had about 10,000 inhabitants.
Nonetheless, the Sassari people did not tolerate subjection and lack
of autonomy; thus, under the pressure of the Republic of Genoa and
the Dorias, the city rebelled against the Catalan-Aragonese,
starting a period of popular uprisings that culminated in the
expulsion of the inhabitants and their replacement with Catalan
subjects; colonization attempt which nevertheless gave little
results. Having become a royal city in 1331, Sassari was then
conquered by the Arborea during the Sardinian-Catalan war; the city
was in fact the last capital of the Giudicato di Arborea from 1410
to 1420, until the sale of the rights of the latter by the last
judge William III of Narbonne to King of Aragon Alfonso V the
Magnanimous for 100,000 florins gold. The Aragonese built the castle
of Sassari with the main purpose of defending themselves from the
revolts of the Sassari themselves; it was demolished in 1877 by
decision of the City Council, as a symbol of foreign oppression and
religious obscurantism, having been the seat of the Spanish
Inquisition. The remains of the castle, including the foundations
and two corridors of the sixteenth-century wall that housed the
artillery, have recently been brought to light and can be visited in
the square of the same name.
Between the end of the 15th and
the beginning of the 16th century Sassari experienced a period of
serious economic and social crisis. In 1527-28 it was repeatedly
invaded and sacked by the French led by Renzo degli Anguillara; the
continuous pirate raids in the Mediterranean impoverished the city
economy, based on trade, and several epidemics killed many of its
inhabitants.
In the second half of the 16th century the city,
which housed a large Corsican community, recovered after years of
crisis, was culturally reborn, the arts flourished again, thanks to
the introduction of printing, humanistic thought spread, thanks also
to the work of Giovanni Francesco Fara and bishop Salvatore Alepus.
Among the painters who carried out their activity in the city, at
that time, we should mention Giovanni Muru, the Master of Ozieri
(Giovanni del Giglio), Andrea Lusso, the Florentine Baccio Gorini
and various artists of the Flemish school. In 1562 a general study
was established, opened by the Jesuits, which, in 1617, led to the
foundation of the first university in Sardinia, to which, among
others, Alessio Fontana, an officer of the chancellery of Charles V,
who, in 1558, in his own will left his assets to the municipality
for the institution of the University, and Archbishop Antonio
Canopolo, who in 1611 founded a Tridentine Seminary (with an
adjoining boarding school for external), for the diocese of
Oristano, entrusted to the Jesuits and today evolved into National
boarding school "Canopoleno".
The so-called "struggle for the
primacy" sharpened the rivalry with the city of Cagliari; the
competition between Sassari and the capital of the Kingdom of
Sardinia will lead the Sassari to claim the right to have a
Parliament in their city, and the seat of the Holy Office of the
Inquisition.
In 1582 the city was hit by a serious plague
epidemic and, with the decimation of the population following this
and other epidemics, Sassari ceased to be the most populous center
on the island. The last phase of the Spanish domination involves
years of decline for Sassari and for all of Sardinia, given the
lesser interest in the island by the Iberians, after the Spanish
Crown had begun its expansion in the New World.
Sassari Savoy
With the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, the brief
Austrian domination begins. A few years later in 1720, Sardinia
passed to the Savoy family. At the end of the eighteenth century in
the city, in the wake of the local upheavals and the spread of the
ideas of the French revolution, the Sassari nobility took advantage
of the opportunity to ask the king for autonomy from Cagliari. This
provoked the reaction of the latter, who sought the support of local
vassals, and of the inhabitants of all Logudoro to demonstrate in
the city on December 28, 1795, singing the famous hymn Su patriotu
sardu a sos feudatarios.
The Vice-King Filippo Vivalda,
worried about a possible degeneration into revolt, sent Giovanni
Maria Angioy, official and judge of the Royal Audience to Sassari,
with the position of alternòs, or representative of the Government
with delegation of viceregal powers, where he was welcomed as a
triumphant liberator. Angioy tried for three months to reconcile
feudal lords and vassals, but realizing the diminished interest and
support from the government and Cagliari, he worked on a subversive
plan with French emissaries, while Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Italy.
However, failing any possible external support with the Armistice of
Cherasco and the Peace of Paris, he decided to carry out an
anti-feudal march on Cagliari but his powers were revoked by the
Viceroy, and he had to stop the march after being abandoned by many
supporters of the royal acceptance of the five requests of the
Sardinian Stamenti, fleeing to Paris.
Having re-established
control, the Savoy family quelled the dissent without however
completely putting an end to the revolts and quarrels that continued
sporadically until the mid-nineteenth century, as in 1833 when the
Sassarian patriot Efisio Tola was shot in Chambéry because he was
accused of being close to the ideals of Young Italy by Giuseppe
Mazzini.
Between the end of the eighteenth and the whole of
the nineteenth century, an era of cultural and urban revival was
experienced, the University was reopened, the city expanded after
five centuries beyond the route of the Sassari Walls,
fourteenth-century Pisan fortifications, (when in concomitance of a
cholera epidemic, permission was given to demolish them in large
part, thus giving vent to a town that had become extremely compact
and dense), new neighborhoods were built, taking the new capital of
the kingdom, i.e. streets with orthogonal mesh, the new hospital,
the prisons, the civic theater, schools and squares, the railway and
sewage network, the oil lighting, and later, on gas, the nearby Port
of Torres, is renovated, the first line naval connections are
activated between the Sardinian port and Genoa, with the use of
steamships, such as the Gulnara, the first boat that used this type
of propulsion, in Italy. The city opens up to important
entrepreneurial activities, the Sassarian industrialist Giovanni
Antonio Sanna, acquires the Montevecchio mine, creates an industrial
area close to the nascent railway, becomes the second Italian city
for the production of leather. The new urban expansion followed a
regular geometric development, forced to make fertile compromises
with the reality of the territory and historical events. The central
axis, Corso Vittorio Emanuele, was extended, giving life to via
Roma, the main street of the Umbertino district.
Contemporary
Sassari
In the twentieth century, the subsequent regulatory plans
expanded the grid by inserting new generating axes towards the main
architectural features of the surroundings, extending the town
beyond the limits of the valleys and proceeding with various
residential and commercial zoning. Passing the Second World War
unscathed and escaping three planned bombings that dropped a single
bomb near the station causing a victim, and becoming a republican in
spite of having confirmed loyalty to the Savoy monarchy with 71.7%
of the votes, the city grew mainly for migration from the
hinterland, thanks to the constant influx from the countries of
northern Sardinia, exerting a strong influence in Italian public
life, both in the military field thanks to the Sassari Brigade, and
in political events (see the Presidents of the Italian Republic
Antonio Segni and Francesco Cossiga), many of them linked to the
episode of the so-called young Turks. Sassari is the capital of the
largest province of Italy and the fifth Italian municipality by
territorial extension with an area of 546 km². Reaching a
population of 130,000 inhabitants, in slight but constant growth,
Sassari remains the second city of the island and the reference
center of Capo di Sopra.
The Municipality of Sassari has as its distinctive
sign the historical coat of arms granted with the Royal Diploma of
January 15, 1767 by King Carlo Emanuele III and confirmed by the
Royal Decree of April 10, 1936.
The shield is also topped by
the marquis crown, adorned with two palm fronds on the sides and
accompanied by two horses as honors to the podestà Cavallino de
Honestis under which Sassari became a free municipality. The towers
take up the symbolism of the Giudicato of Torres and the city of
Turris Libisonis or Porto Torres. Until 1766, as in the seals of
other Sardinian cities, the insignia of the Iberian lordship
remained. These were then replaced at the suggestion of the Minister
Giovanni Battista Lorenzo Bogino in the coats of arms with the Savoy
Cross, also in the case of Bosa, Cagliari, Oristano and Alghero
(which removed it in 1991 to return to the Iberian colors). The
marquis crown was instead reserved only for Cagliari and Sassari.
Sassari, formerly a free municipality, obtained the
title of royal city on 20 August 1331, the third city on the island
a few years after Iglesias (as Villa di Chiesa) and Cagliari (as
Castel de Càller and later only Càller), which had obtained on 7
June and 25 August 1327.
This title followed the right to
maintain its municipal statutes, obtained on 7 May 1323 by James II
of Aragon, although changed in the extension of Barcelona's
privileges. The city, thus admitted to perpetual union with the
Crown, founded its legal status on the special privileges granted by
the sovereign. This led to a mutation of the local law in favor of
the foreign one, where the Barcelona model was replaced by the
Italian podestà municipal model: the figure of the podestà was
joined by that of the vicar, limiting the previous total
jurisdiction, the appointment as the remuneration became direction,
the position for an indefinite period is also open to the feudal
lords. The office of Governor was then understood to be extended to
the entire Head above.