MonumentsMonuments
Villa Pollini
Gaetano Pollini, a rich businessman (corn trade) had this Villa built in 1812. The project includes few buildings, the farming industry one, the workers' lodgings and a small chapel. Some interesting features are the neoclassical façade and the fountain with its round basin. The Villa had many owners, as like...
Palazzo Civico
Palazzo Civico In 1896 Cagliari, the chief city of Sardinia, had a population of about 50 thousand.The then city council decided to build a new Town Hall. For the first time Cagliari's aristocracy, till then subdued to the House of Savoy and the former foreign Monarchies, yielded power to the new...
Roman Amphitheatre
Cagliari Amphitheatre is the most important building from the Romans' times. Its cavea is 89 meters lengthways and 72 across and its arena is 43m. and 31 m. It lies inside a narrow valley on the south side of Buon Cammino hill, dug along an ancient stream. This location...
Saint Remy Bastion
Address: Via Università Porta dei Leoni The Saint Remy Bastion was built in the early 20th century on the ancient "Zecca" and "Sperone", the Spanish bastions, to connect the higher part of Cagliari with the Villanova and Marina districts. The terrace Umberto I, opened in 1901 and since after the second...
San Giorgio WW2 Hospital
In 1941 a new, large health care compound, the San Giorgio Hospital, was built and linked to the Carlo Felice Hospital, on request of the Italian Red Cross to give shelter to the patients during the air raids. For this reason the site chosen was inside a complex of caves...
CARLO FELICE MONUMENT/JENNE SQUARE
The sculptor Andrea Galassi designed it and the 1829 is the date of its casting. But the history of the King of Sardegna statue, King Carlo Felice, heroically posing with his helmet, is nothing less than adventurous. It was exhibited only in 1860 after a long controversy inside the Government....
Palazzo Regio. The Royal Palace
The palace was started about 1337, when the city was under the Aragonese rule. The Sardinian Parliament, one of the very first in Europe, was established here, in this building in 1355. From the Thirteenth Century onwards Piazza Palace (the Palace square) has become the centre of the Sardinian...
The Elephant Tower
This tower, twinned to the San Pancrazio tower, was built under the Pisa dominion, in 1307, by the Architect Giovanni Capula. It was a prominent part of the fortification wall in the Pisa Medieval times. The massive tower walls are 3-meters thick and with extremely narrow loopholes, on the Castle...
Santissimi Martiri Crypt at the Cathedral
On the opposite side of the presbytery the two doors lead to the crypt, built in 1618 by Monsignor Desquivel to house the remains of the martyrs found in San Lucifero and San Saturno necropolis. At the time there was a hard competition between the cities to display the greatest...
Necropoli di Tuvixeddu
Tuvixeddu necropolis is the largest phoenician/punic necropolis in Cagliari. It is at the homonymous hillside, amid Viale Sant'Avendrace and Via Is Maglias. The name "Tuvixeddu" means "the hill with the little holes", as "tuvu" in sardinian means "cavity". In fact here the phonicians buried their deads digging graves into the...
Cloister and crypt of San Domenico
Address: Via XXIV Maggio Telephone: +39 070 662837 The monastery of St. Dominic was founded in 1254 on the site of the ancient Benedictine church dedicated to St. Anna in the Villanova quarter. The original plan of the complex had a close relationship with Tuscan constructions and the building code of...
San Pancrazio's Tower
San Pancrazio's Tower has got its name from its proximity to a church devoted to this Saint and has been built in 1305 by the Giovanni Capula, an architect from the city of Pisa. At the same time a second tower was built, called the Elephant Tower. The tower was...
Monumento all'Immacolata Concezione
The marble monument was carved in 1882 by Luigi Guglielmi under the suggestion by Carlo Boyl, after theImmaculate Conception dogma proclamation in 1856. After an air raid in 1943 the monument was removed from its original axis, facing now Via Sassari. The placement of this monument was instrumental in...
Grottoni dei Giardini Pubblici
The Buoncammino hill boundary, at Viale San Vincenzo, is the location of the entrance of this ancient and huge cave, leading underground till the Giardini Pubblici. Originally a stone quarry in the Medieval era, it was turned into an air raid shelter during WW2. It went under restoration in 2002....
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Town Hall, S.E.ARCH open space You can find S.E.ARCH on the ground floor of Cagliari's Town Hall. This exhibition space was opened by the City Historical Archive to display the XX century Cagliari History and Heritage. Its collection is huge: 1.500 photos from the end of the XIX century, 822 postcards,...
War Memorial. Piazza Martiri
At the top of Via Manno, in the small square Piazza Martiri, rises the War Memorial dedicated to the Sardinians who died during the Italian Independence Wars. The Memorial was designed in 1886 by Giuseppe Sartorio, a Piemontese sculptor. On the cubic plinth surmounted by a red stone pyramid, the...
Palazzo dell'Università
University Palace The first buildings of this street were commissioned by the Piedmontese, to move here the University founded under the Aragonese rule in 1626.The three buildings on the right hand side of the road share the same architectural style, three window rows with stone corbels and vertical pilasters on...
Palazzo Arcivescovile Archiepiscopal Palace
This building has been the site and the priory of the Archbishop of Cagliari, since the twelfth Century and it is part of the Platea Comunis, the ancient main square of Castello quarter, where many of the historical buildings can be found, as the Cathedral, the old Town Hall and...
Villa di Tigellio
Walking down Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, as you come through the ancient gate of "S'Ecca Manna", at Via Caprera and via Palabanda junction, you will see on the right hand side a fenced-in area, called "Villa di Tigellio". These are the most important Roman Era remains in Cagliari. Karales,...
Passeggiata Coperta Bastione di Saint Remy
From the Umberto I terrace, descending the first staircase, you will see the Passeggiata Coperta (the Covered Promenade) designed in 1896 by the engineer Giuseppe Costa. Along the years it has been an infirmary during WW1, a banqueting hall and, at the present time, it is an art exhibition...
Italian Union of the blind
The building was financed and designed by the first Union Director Giuseppe Scano in collaboration with the City Council and a group of Building Contractors and, in the first instance, was intended to be a workshop for the Blind. In fact on the ground floor originally there were large tanks...
Torre di Calamosca
The Calamosca Tower was part of the Sardinia coastal towers built by the Spaniards. It was built in 1638 (as attested by the marble plaque on the front wall) is set at the Calamosca Cape at 54 meters above sea level. It was built to accommodate large caliber cannons...
Artistic education High School (former Scolopi College)
The original complex, the San Giuseppe College and the Church, was built in 1640 by the Scolopi Fathers Congregation. This monastic order was founded specifically for the youth education. It was an innovative initiative, as it was directed to educate the poors and it was completely free. The building, still...
Orto dei Cappuccini
At the Capuchins garden, now Cagliari City property, there are few cisterns dug into the rocks, which were wrongly attributed to the Punic times. They are actually "latomie" (stone quarries also used as prisons) opened in the 2nd Century AD, during the construction of the Roman Ampitheatre. During the many...
Torre dell'Aquila
In 1717 Cagliari was under siege by the Spaniards. This tower, originally built by Pisa, was seriously damaged by the gunfire. It was partly demolished and rebuilt into the Boyl Palace in 1840. The massive gate had an eagle engraved, so this access point to the Castello quarter...
Torre della Quarta Regia
The "Quarta Regia" Tower was built during the Aragon rule of Cagliari. The name ("the Fourth Royal") comes from the "fourth part" duty on the fish haul at the Santa Gilla lagoon. The tallage was called "arrendu" in Sardinian ("arrendar" in Spanish) and was paid till 1956....The Tower is located...
Societa degli Operai di Mutuo Soccorso
The Workers' Mutual Aid Association was founded in Cagliari in 1855. After changing few locations a new building, in the elegant Liberty style, was erected in 1912 and it is still the Association headquarters at the present times. The building was seriously damaged by the 1943 air raids but it...
Scuola Elementare Satta
The school complex "Satta" was part of the new building fervor at the end of the 19th century. The political and administrative offices were moved out from the traditional Castello quarter site and relocated closer to the Port area. In 2003 the School (Sardinia's first Primary School) turned 100 years...
THE IRON STAIRCASE and THE FORTIFICATION WALLS
On the easterly side of the Marina quarter, the Nostra Signora di Monserrato bastion surrounds this archeological site. The "Iron Staircase" Hotel has been built in the Eighteenth Century partially against the external walls of the bastion. In the year 2000 and 2002 some road works in the area uncovered...
Oratorio del SS. Crocifisso
This Oratory, also known as Saint Christ (Santo Cristo), is in San Giacomo Square, next to the Anime Purganti Oratory. The front, unlike other "minor" churches in Cagliari, shows a distinctive ornate style. Built between 1665 and 1667, on an early Confraternity Hall by 1616, it was deeply altered between...
Sala di Rappresentanza del Tribunale Amministrativo Regionale
The Regional Legal Court of Sardinia site was opened in 1927 on the south/west side of Piazza del Carmine. On the third floor, the Representative Room displays four paintings by the Maestro Filippo Figari, from 1928 and 1929. The Court joined Cagliari|'s Council Open Monuments Project to...
The San Pancrazio (Saint Pancras) well
The San Pancrazio (Saint Pancras) well, at Piazza Indipendenza, was completed in 1235, to provide the Castello quarter stronghold with water. In the 19th Century, while restoring the square, the well was lowered so to disappear under the street level. A bulkhead tunnel, 30 meters long, was built to access...
Palazzo Siotto
Palazzo Siotto was built in 1850 and in 1927 it went under a full restoration. It is built on three facades to close the corner of Palazzo Cugia block. The most significant is certainly the one at Via dei Genovesi with its large portal and balcony. The building is the...
Grotta della Vipera
This "sepolcro gentilizio" (a family burial vault), is next the Tuvixeddu necropolis, at Viale San Avendrace. It is from the end of the 1st Century and beginning of 2nd Century AD and was dedicated by Lucio Cassio Filippo, a Roman nobleman to his wife, Atilia Pomptilla. The legend goes ...
Via Don Bosco Air Raid shelter
The gallery, 80 meters long, was originally built during the Piemontese rule of the town but it was rearranged to accommodate the population living in the area during the WW2 air raids. There were few side tunnels and 14 "rooms" , all of them fitted with benches placed along the...
Casa Barrago
This is the Public Record Office site of Sardinia and it was built between 1913 and 1915 in the Is Stelladas area (now included in the Villanova quarter). In 1941 the bourgeois house was acquired by the businessman Francesco Barrago and years later the Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione (equivalent...
Figlie di San Giuseppe Chapel
This chapel is located at Via Università, inside the ex-Seminario Tridentino building. It was built in 1776 and till 1959 it was the Tridentino Seminary site. The Nuns sisterhood moved in to carry out its ecclesiastical offices in 1888. The Chapel was then built for the Nuns and restored in...
Societa di Sant'Anna
The building of the Sant'Anna Church at the Stampace quarter started on the same day, December 24th 1782, of the Congregation's foundation. It is a secular institute aiming to help the people in need of the quarter. The Congregation has been instrumental in Cagliari's Carnival first staging, the creation of...
Fullonica: the Roman Fullery (laundry)
Fullonica: the Roman Fullery (laundry)A vast area with a well, tanks for washing and tanks for dyeing was unearthed in 1956, during the building of the new National Insurance Funds site at Viale Regina Margherita. The archeologists, judging also from the stone floor and some inscriptions, as dolphins, alligators and...
Sant'Ignazio blockhouse
The construction of this military fort can be dated 1792. Some of the historical documents though, tell us that the completion of the blockhouse was never achieved. The plan was to arm the fort with as much as fifty cannons but only 5 or 6 were actually moved into position...
The Sa Illetta Farmhouse
The first establishment of the farmhouse goes back to Sabater, in 1567, a rich Notary from Cagliari. Baron Sorso Vincenzo Amat restored the building at the beginning of 1800 to assume the present size. About one hundred years after the new owner Giovanni Balletto had the lunette of the portal...
Faculty of engineering – Dept. Of Architecture
The University of Architecture is located at the ex-Collegio dei Gesuiti (Jesuits College), adjoined to the Santa Croce Basilica, Via Corte D'Appello. When the Jesuits Order was disbanded, in 1773, the Church and the College were given to the Savoy State. The building is extremely interesting for some of its...
The ex San Lucifero Monastery
Built in 1646, the Church and the Monastery are now the Art College "Foiso Fois" site. The complex belonged for a long time to the Dominican Order and in 1769 it was turned by the City Council into a Youth College of Education. The complex has been used as an...
Ex Collegio di Santa Teresa
A knight from Cagliari, Juan Francisco Jorgi, left all his properties in 1611 to the Jesuits. The bequest was instrumental in the Collegio of Santa Teresa complex building at Piazza Dettori, taking at least 80 years before its completion. In 1835 the Royal Family gave approval to the...
La Giudaria
La Giudaria (the Jewish area) This area of the Castello quarter was inhabited by few Jewish communities as stated by the State Archive of Cagliari, between 1323 and 1492. They followed the Infante Alfonso of Aragona when the Catalan Royal family began their rule on the City. In mid-15th Century it...
Cripta e Chiostro di San Domenico
The Friary of San Domenico was founded in 1254 at the Villanova quarter where originally the Benedictine church of Sant'Anna was. The straight Gothic architecture style was modified later on when Sardinia was incorporated into the Aragon Kingdom, as like the San Francesco Church in the Stampace quarter. In 1580...
Santa Restituta Crypt
The crypt was dug into the rock during the late-Punic and paleo-Christian times but it is also part of a natural cave-system. It was abandoned till the 13th century when it was restored and the walls decorated by late-Byzantine frescoes. Saint Restituta of Africa's relics, preserved ...
Purging Souls Oratory
The "Blessed Purgatory souls" fellowship, founded in 1695, built the Oratory between the Churches of San Giacomo and Santo Cristo, in 1709. The plant is similar to the Santo Cristo Oratory with only one barrel vault nave. Noteworthy is the marble altar by the sculptor Battista Franco. Address: Piazza San Giacomo
Citadel of Museums
Address: Piazza Arsenale Telephone: +39 070 6757627 Address: Piazza ArsenaleTelephone: +39 070 6757627Since 1979, following the restoration by the Architects Gazzola and Cecchini, the whole area is known as "la Cittadella dei Musei", the Museums' Citadel. You can find here the Archaeological National Museum with a large collection of nuragic finds,...
San Lucifero complex
Address: Via San Lucifero, 78 Telephone: +39 070 653617 The San Lucifero complex includes three Roman mausoleums dating back to the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. They were later used again for Christian burials. Sacellum of San Lucifero – Today the monument has been largely changed and is divided into...
Monumental cemetery of Bonaria
Address: Viale Cimitero Telephone: +39 070 300205 The monumental cemetery of Bonaria rises on the hill of the same name in an area previously used as a necropolis as far back as the Punic, Roman and early Christian times. Up to the first years of the century, the Benedictine church...
The City of Salt
At the Città del Sale (the City of the Salt) you can delve into the history of modern technology and industrial engineering, at least the one linked to the specific field of salt extraction. Between WW1 and WW2 this industry had a major boost and the La Palma compound, with...
The Bonaria necropolis
The Bonaria hill was used as a funerary area since ancient times. The first excavations go back to 1863 under the direction of Giovanni Spano. In 1888 a new wing of the necropolis, the site of the most prestigious monumental sepulchers, was unearthed next to the known one. The most...
Aragonese church
Address: Via Leo The church, located on the slopes of Monte Urpino, was built on the wishes of Baron Giovanni Sanjust di Teulada between the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th centuries on the ruins of an old Byzantine church. The original church was smaller than...
Masonic house
Address: Piazza Indipendenza The present Masonry Lodge of Cagliari has got its own main office inside this building, and was founded in 1626. Built in neo-classical style, the building displays a palatial grand staircase. The original names of the two roads flanking the building were ruga mercatorum and vicus fabrorum,...
Via Vittorio Veneto quarry
The quarry is front 40 Via Vittorio Veneto and the wide entrance is almost entirely blocked off by a double stone wall. The quarry has a perimeter of around 150 meters and an internal area of around 800 square meters. The cave, once a quarry around the Punic Age,...
Chapel of the institute of San Vincenzo
Address: Via San Vincenzo, 55 Inside the chapel we can admire six oil paintings on canvas and a series of paintings on wood created in the middle of the 1940s by Aurelio Galleppini, who signed his works as Galep. Some years later he became famous as one of the creators...