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ROUTE 1

CAGLIARI

Time: one day

Starting at the railway station and going along Via Roma towards the port, on the left you come to the Cagliari Town Hall, which was built between 1899 and 1907. Its architectural style drew inspiration from Aragonese Gothic architecture that was common in Sardinia between the 14th and 15th century, with typical Liberty flower patterns. The interior decoration was entrusted to important Sardinian artists, in particular to Felice Melis Marini and Filippo Figari, who is also responsible for the decoration in the Wedding Hall and the Council Hall. Leaving the town hall and heading left along Via Roma, go along the characteristic colonnade that represents one of Cagliari’s most typical walks. When you reach the wet dock, turn into Viale Bonaria where you find Palazzo del CIS, which was built between 1987 and 1992 from a project by Renzo Piano. Continuing along Viale Bonaria, you come to the Hill of the same name, on top of which stand the Sanctuary and Basilica of Bonaria, side by side. The Sanctuary, which was built between 1324 and 1326 by the Aragone-se, bears the typical forms of Gothic-Catalan architecture. Inside you can find the greatly revered wooden simulacrum of the Madonna di Bonaria (15th cen-tury) and the painting on wooden board of the Madonna del Cardellino by Michele Cavaro (16th century). The nearby Museum contains works of art and the mariners’ votive offerings that were donated to the sanctuary. The neighbouring Basilica, which is much larger, was started in 1704 from the project of the military engineer Felice De Vincenti; it was later altered by Giuseppe Viana in 1778 and finally completed with its present façade in 1954. The whole complex is characterised by the use of calcareous stone from the same hill, at the foot of which stands the nineteenth-century Cimitero Monumentale (Monumental Graveyard), which skirts the avenue of the same name. Go along Viale Cimitero, turning left into Via Logudoro and you will come to Piazza San Cosimo, where there is the old church of San Saturnino, dedicated to the martyr from Cagliari, who was decapitated in the year 304 during the persecutions of the emperor Diocletian. The church was built in the 6th century with a domed, cruciform ground plan and renovated in the 11th century. Going along Via San Lucifero and Via Iglesias, head for the historical quarter of Villanova and turn into the first stretch of Via Garibaldi to Piazza Costituzione, which is overlooked by the Bastione di Saint Remy (Bastion of Saint Remy) built between 1896 and 1902.

The Bastion is characterised by its great picturesque staircase, which starts at the square, branching off into two ramps, and joins a series of terraces, with a covered walkway that skirts Viale Regina Elena. The route continues uphill along Viale Regina Elena, commonly known as "Terrapieno", and reaches the Public Gardens, where there is the Galleria Comunale d’Arte, (Municipal Art Gallery). Since January 2001, the Gallery, which is the first building in Sardinia to become the site of a museum, has housed the precious Ingrao Collection, which represents the greatest Italian masters of the twentieth century. There are works by Umberto Boccioni, Giorgio Morandi, Filippo De Pisis, Mario Mafai, Felice Casorati and Mino Maccari. There is also a display of a selection of 74 works from the Civic Collection: artists from Francesco Ciusa and Giuseppe Biasi to Maria Lai and Costantino Nivola are among the greatest protagonists of twentieth-century Sardinian art.

The last part of Viale Regina Elena leads through the gate of the same name to Piazza Arsenale, which is set within the Castle and is the most important of Cagliari’s four historical quarters. From the square you reach the Cittadella dei Musei (Museum Citadel), which is a modern museum complex inside the old military Arsenal area. Here you can find the Museo Archeologico Nazionale (National Archaeological Museum) and the Pinacoteca Nazionale (National Picture Gallery). The first contains the most important collection of archaeological finds in Sardinia dating back to between the Prehistoric and Byzantine age. Particularly noteworthy are the little statues of the mother goddess, the small bronzes of the Nuraghi, the Phoenician-Punic jewels (including the famous necklace in vitreous pastes found in Olbia) and the lead ingots dating back to the Roman age. An important set of pictorial retables dating back to the 15th -16th century are preserved in the

picture-gallery and 17th -19th century paintings documenting the history of painting in Sardinia. In the citadel youcan also see the interesting Anatomical Wax Collection by Clemente Susini and the Museo Siamese "Cardu" ("Cardu" Siamese Museum) with collections of arms, porcelains and oriental objects. After leaving the nineteenth-century Porta Cristina, go along Viale Buoncammino, where there is a beautiful view over the historical quarter of Stampace, until you see the grand Roman amphitheatre (2nd century A.D.), whose steps are partially dug into the rock, which is still used for open-air concerts and lyric operas. Alongside the Grotta della Vipera (Viper’s Cave) which is also dug into the tuff of Cagliari, it is the Roman city’s most important surviving monument. Double back to the torre pisana di San Pancrazio (Pisan Tower of San Pancrazio) (1305), which was designed with the Elephant tower (1307) by the architect from Cagliari Giovanni Capula to defend the Castle’s north entrance.

Turning into Piazza Indipendenza and continuing along Via Martini you come to what is now Piazza Palazzo with the Palazzo Regio and Cathedral of Santa Maria. The Palazzo Regio, which was an ancient seat of the viceroys from Iberia and then Piedmont (series of beautiful eighteenth-nineteenth-century portraits in the Sala degli Alabardieri), occasionally held the exiled court of Savoy between 1799 and 1814. It was decorated at the end of the nineteenth century by the painter from Perugia Domenico Bruschi as the seat of the Provincial Administration, with scenes from Sardinia’s history and classical mythology. The Cathedral of Santa Maria, which was built at the beginning of the 13th century by the Pisanis, became a cathedral in 1258. The bell-tower is the only remaining structural Romanesque element.

The pulpito di Guglielmo (made between 1159 and 1162) also belongs to this period; it came from Pisa cathedral between 1310 and 1312 and was taken apart in the second half of the 17th century on the occasion of the Baroque reconstruction of Cagliari cathedral. Two Gothic chapels are also preserved inside: to the left of the altar is the one from Pisa, and to the right the Aragonese one, which was completed after 1326, when the Catalan-Aragonese conquered the island. Again in the 17th century, the Crypt was made for the relics of Sardinia’s saints and martyrs, and contains the neoclassical funeral monuments of Maria Luisa di Savoia, the queen of France, and the young prince Carlo Emanuele di Savoia. Inside there are precious, polychrome marbles, Baroque altars and funeral monuments of archbishops and viceroys, the mausoleum of Martino il Giovane, the king of Sicily, beautiful eighteenth-century altar pieces and noteworthy sacred furnishings in silver, which are today partly preserved in the nearby Diocesan Museum. Going down towards the historical quarter of Marina, turn into Via Manno and take a left turn into Via Baylle where there is the church of Sant’Agostino.

 The church was built at the end of the 16th century and is Sardinia’s most Renaissance church. The secondary entrance to the church of Sant’Agostino leads into Largo Carlo Felice, which you go back up until you reach Piazza Yenne, after this turn into Via Azuni, which ends with the façade of the Baroque church of San Michele, which was built by the Jesuits in the second half of the seventeenth century. The sacristy, in Rococo style, which was frescoed by the Roman Giacomo Altomonte, is characterised by the stylistic coherency of all of its pictorial, wooden and marble furnishings.