Sardinia ( ; , ; ) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea (after Sicily).

A part of Italy with regional autonomy granted by the Italian Constitution, Sardinia comprises . The nearest land masses are (clockwise from north) the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Tunisia, and the Spanish Balearic Islands.

The name Sardinia is of unknown origin.

Geography

Sardinia is the second largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, with a surface of 23,821 km². It is situated between 38° 51' and 41° 15' latitude north and 8° 8' and 9° 50' east longitude.

The coasts of Sardinia (1,849 km long) are generally high and rocky, rectilinear for kilometres, they are often articulated in promontories, with ample and deep bays and inlets surrounded by smaller isles.

The island, being an ancient territory with rocks that go back through the Palaeozoic Era (up to 500 million years old), does not possess any high mountains because of its long erosion processes. The granite, schist, tranchite, basalt (called "jars" or "gollei"), sandstone, and dolomite limestone (called tonneri or "heels") rocky highlands predominate at a height of between 300 and 1,000 meters. The entire territory of the island is non-seismic.

The Gennargentu is a large mountain massif in the center of the island; its highest peaks are Punta La Marmora (1,834 m), Monte Limbara (1,362 m) in the north, and Mount Rasu (1,259 m), culminating in the Marghine chain, that runs crosswise for 40 km towards the north. The island's massifs and plateaus are separated by large alluvial valleys and flatlands; the main plains are the Campidano, located in the southwest between Oristano and Cagliari, and the Nurra, in the northwest.

Sardinia has few major rivers; the largest is the Tirso, which has a length of 94 miles (151 km) and flows into the Sea of Sardinia. There are about fifty artificial lakes, of which Lake Omodeo and Lake Coghinas are the main ones. The only natural freshwater lake is Baratz Lake. A high number of large, salty lakes and lagoons are located along the 1.850 km of its coasts.

The climate is typical of the Mediterranean. The weather is clear. During the year approximately 300 days are sunny and the few others are rainy, with a major concentration of rainfall in the winter and autumn, some heavy showers in the spring, and snowfalls on the highest massifs and highlands. The mistral is the dominant wind, fresh, strong, and usually dry and cold, blowing from the northwest throughout the year, but most frequently in winter and spring.

File:Torre della Pelosa.jpg | Sea in StintinoFile:Forra gorroppu.jpg| Gorropu Canyon in SupramonteFile:Lagoon Beach (88937089).jpg|Porto Giunco in VillasimiusFile:Marmilla las plassas.jpg| Campidano's Plain near Las PlassasFile:Gusana.jpg | Gennargentu Massif in winterFile:Capotestasantateresagallura.jpg| Granitic landscape in GalluraFile:Cala Goloritze o.jpg| Cala GoloritzéFile:Tacco ogliastra.jpg| A typical limestone tacco in Ogliastra

History

Prehistory

Sardinia is one of the most ancient lands in Europe, visited during the Palaeolithic period though inhabited permanently by humans only much later, in the Neolithic age, around 6,000 BC.

The first humans to settle in Gallura and northern Sardinia probably came from the Italian mainland and, in particular, from Etruria. Those who populated the central region of the island around the salt lakes of Cabras and S. Giusta may have arrived from the Iberian Peninsula by way of the Balearic Islands. Those who founded their settlements around the Gulf of Cagliari were made up of several peoples.

Evidence of trade with other Aegean centres is present in the period 1600 BC onwards; for example fine ceramic products of Cydonia have been recovered in Sardinia. As time passed, the Sardinian peoples became united in language and customs, yet remained divided politically into various smaller tribal states. Sometimes they banded together, while at others they were at war with one another. Tribes lived in villages made up of round thatched stone huts, similar to those of present-day shepherds.

From about 1500 BC onwards, the villages were built at the foot of truncated cone fortresses (often reinforced and enlarged with embattled towers) called nuraghi (plural of nuraghe).

The boundaries of tribal territories were guarded by smaller lookout nuraghi erected on strategic hills commanding a view of the enemy. Today some 7,000 nuraghi dot the Sardinian landscape.

Ancient history

Around 1000 BC the Phoenicians began to land on the shores of Sardinia with increasing frequency. Setting sail from the coast of modern-day Lebanon, on their trade routes as far afield as Britain they needed safe anchorages for the night or to weather a storm. The more common ports of call were Caralis, Nora, Bithia, Sulcis, Tharros, Bosa and Olbia. They soon became important markets and after a time real towns, inhabited by Phoenician families who traded on the open sea and with the Nuragic Sardinians inland.

In 509 BC, because the Phoenician expansion inland was becoming ever more menacing and penetrating, the native Sardinians attacked the coastal cities held by the enemy, who, in order to defend themselves, called upon Carthage for help. The Carthaginians, after a number of military campaigns, overcame the Sardinians and conquered the most mountainous region. For 271 years, the Carthaginian or Punic civilization flourished alongside the local culture.

In 238 BC the Carthaginians, defeated by the Romans in the first Punic War, surrendered Sardinia, which became a province of Rome. The Romans enlarged and embellished the coastal cities and founded new cities like Turris Lybissonis and Feronia , populated by Roman immigrants, and with their armies even penetrated the central mountains, referred to by the Romans as Barbaria or Barbagia , thereby bringing down the nuragic civilization. The Roman domination in Sardinia lasted 694 years and was often opposed by the Sardinians from the mountains who, nevertheless, adopted the Latin language and their civilization.

Medieval history

In 456 A.D., when the Roman Empire was rapidly declining, the Vandals, on their return from a raid in Latium on the mainland Italy, occupied Caralis along with the other coastal cities of Sardinia. In 534 the Vandals were defeated in the Battle of Tricamarum by the troops of Justinian, and Sardinia thus became Byzantine. The island was divided into districts called merèie, governed by a judge residing in Caralis (Cagliari) and garrisoned by an army stationed in Forum Traiani (nowadays Fordongianus) under the command of a dux. With the Byzantines came Christianity, which spread throughout the island (along with the monasticism of the followers of St. Basil), except in the Barbagia region. Here, towards the end of the 6th century, a short-lived independent domain reestablished itself, with local heathen and religious traditions, one of its kings being Ospitone.

Raids and attacks by the Berbers on the Sardinian shores began in 710 and grew ever more ruinous with time. Their inhabitants abandoned the coastal towns and cities. The judge provincial, in order to afford a better defence of the island, assigned his civil and military powers to his four lieutenants in Cagliari, Torres or Logudoro, Arborea, and Gallura. Around 900, the lieutenants gained their independence, in turn becoming judices (Sardinian judike, 'king') of their own logo or state.

Each one of these four Sardinian states constituted a sovereign kingdom, not patrimonial but independent, since it was not the property of the monarch. But they were at the same time democratic, since all the most important issues of national interest were not for the king (or giudice) himself to decide but were a matter for the representatives of the people gathered in assembly called corona de logu. Each kingdom manned its own fortified boundaries to protect its own political and trading affairs, its own parliament, laws (cartas de logu), languages, chancelleries, state emblems and symbols, etc.

The kingdom or "giudicato" of Cagliari was politically pro-Genoese. It was brought to an end in 1258 when its capital, S. Igia, was stormed and destroyed by an alliance of Sardinian-Pisan forces. The territory then became a colony of Pisa.

The kingdom of Torres, too, was pro-Genoese and came to an end in 1259 on the death of the giudicessa Adelasia. The territory was divided up between the Doria family of Genoa and the Basserra family of Arborea, while the city of Sassari became an autonomous city-republic.

The kingdom of Gallura ended in the year 1288, when the last giudice, Nino Visconti (a friend of Dante Alighieri), was driven out by the Pisan who occupied the territory.

The kingdom of Arborea had a longer life compared to the other Giudicati. It lasted some 520 years and had Oristano (Aristanis in Sardinian) as its capital. The kingdom was called Arborea after its coat of arm which featured a green eradicated tree (a tree with its roots visible) on a white field. The history of Arborea is entwined with the history of Sardinian struggle for independence against the Aragonese invasion.

In 1297, Pope Boniface VIII in order to settle diplomatically the War of the Vespers, which broke out in 1282 between the Angevins and Aragonese over the possession of Sicily, established on his own initiative (motu proprio) a hypothetical regnum Sardiniae et Corsicae ("kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica"). The Pope offered this newly created crown to James II, King of Aragon promising him support should he wish to conquer Pisan Sardinia in exchange for Sicily.

In 1323 the kings of Arborea formed an alliance with James II of Aragon against the Pisans. The Arborea kingdom decided to ally with the Aragonese despite what they knew about the Aragonese plans to take control of Sardinia because they saw the Pisans as a bigger threat. It is also important to remember that kings of Arborea partly descended from an Aragonese family: the Aragonese flag featured on the Arborea coat of arms and flags alongside the eradicated tree (or at least it did until the conflict between Arborea and Aragon escalated). Following a military campaign which lasted a year or so, the Aragonese occupied the Pisan territories of Cagliari and Gallura along with the city of Sassari, naming them "Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica". However, soon the kings of Arborea started to wage war against the Aragonese. The kings of Arborea in fact had their own plans to unite Sardinia in one independent kingdom or Giudicato.

The first king of Arborea to actively pursue a plan to unite Sardinia under the rule of Arborea was Barisone I. He managed to be crowned King of Sardinia by the Holy Roman Empire emperor Fredrick I "Barbarossa" in 1164. However, in order to receive the title of King of Sardinia Barisone I had taken a loan from the Republic of Genoa that he was unable to pay back. For this reason, he was taken as a prisoner by the Republic of Genoa and was detained for 7 years. In the end, Barisone never succeed in uniting Sardinia under his rule because of his financial problems.When all the other Giudicati fell under the rule of foreign powers, the kings of Arborea started to see themselves as the legitimate defenders of Sardinian rule and Sardinian interests. They not only waged war against the Kings of Aragon that were trying to conquer all of Sardinia, they also started to develop the institutions at the basis of their rule, for example by promulgating the legal code of the kingdom in the Carta de Logu (in Sardinian: the document [that regulates] the country). The Carta de Logu was originally promulgated by Mariano IV of Arborea, but the original code was amended and ameliorated by Mariano's daughter, the queen Eleanor of Arborea. The legal code was written in Sardinian and:

In the Carta de Logu it is clear that the kings of Arborea saw themselves as the legitimate rulers of Sardinia: they stated very clearly that the Carta de Logu was intended as the law code that applied to the whole of Sardinia (not just to their dominions) and that it had been studied to guarantee the well-being and development of the Sardinian state.

On the other hand, 1353 Peter IV of Aragon, following an Aragonese custom, granted a parliament to the kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica, which was followed in due course by some degree of self-government under a viceroy and judicial independence (Royal Hearing). However this parliament had some very limited powers. It included 3 branches, the military branch that included high-ranking military commanders, the clerical branch, and the nobility branch that included the most notable nobles. It is important to note that the kingdom of Aragon was responsible for introducing the system of feudalism in Sardinia. The Sardinian kingdoms (giudicati), and moreover the kingdom (Giudicato) of Arborea, never adopted feudalism. The Kingdom of Arborea had also its parliament called "Corona de Logu". In this parliament, apart from the nobles and military commanders, also sat the representatives of each village. The Corona de Logu exercised some control over the king: under the rule of the "bannus consensus" the king could be deposed or even killed if he did not follow the rules of kingdom.

From 1365 to 1409 the Arborean giudici Mariano IV, Ugone III, Mariano V (assisted by his mother Eleonora, the famous giudicessa regent), and Guglielmo III (French grandson of Eleonora) succeeded in occupying all of Sardinia except the heavily fortified towns of Castle of Cagliari (today Cagliari) and Alghero, which for years where the only Aragonese dominions in Sardinia. The Giudicato of Arborea and the kings of Arborea received a great support from many Sardinians from different classes. This was also because many Sardinians were strongly against the feudal system that the Kingdom of Aragon wanted to introduce in its domains.

In 1409 Martin I of Sicily, king of Sicily and heir to the crown of Aragon, defeated the Sardinians at the Battle of Sanluri (Sa battalla de Seddori, in Sardinian). The battle was fought by about 20,000 Sardinians that took to arms spontaneously. In a time when the population of Sardinia had been greatly depleted by the plague, 20,000 Sardinians represented a very considerable number. Despite the Sardinian army being more numerous than the Aragonese army, the Sardinians were defeated and it is estimated that about 5,000 Sardinians were killed in the battle. A field near Sanluri is still known to this day as the "Occidroxiu" (the massacre).

However, the kingdom of Arborea surrendered only after some of its most notable men (e.g. Leonardo Cubello) decided to switch sides in exchange for some privileges. For example, Leonardo Cubello, who was from a family related to the family of the Kings of Arborea and had some claims on the crown of Arborea, in exchange for his subjection to the King of Aragon was granted the title of Marquis of Oristano and feudal rights on a territory that partly overlapped with the original extension of the Kingdom of Arborea.The success of the Kingdom of Aragon was marred by the death of the heir to the Aragon crown, Martin I of Sicily. He died of malaria in Cagliari where he was buried. He had contracted malaria during the military campaign against the Kingdom of Arborea. Consequently the Crown of Aragon passed to a different dynasty, the Trastàmara house - in particular Ferdinand I of Aragon and his descendants - with the Compromise of Caspe in 1412.

The conquering of Sardinia by the Kingdom of Aragon and the consequent loss of independence also meant the introduction in all of Sardinia of the feudal system. Thus Sardinia is probably the only European country where feudalism had been introduced in the transition between the Middle Age and Modern Age, that is at a time when feudalism had already been abandoned by other European countries.

Modern history

In 1479, as a result of the personal union of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabel of Castile, the Crown of Spain was born. Even the "kingdom of Sardinia" (which in the new title was separated from Corsica, since that island never was conquered) became Spanish, with the state symbol of the Four Moors. Following the failure of the military ventures against the Mulsumen of Tunis (1535) and Algiers (1541), Charles V of Spain, in order to defend his Mediterranean territories from pirate raids by the African Berbers, fortified the Sardinian shores with a system of coastal lookout towers.



The kingdom of Sardinia remained Spanish for approximately 400 years, from 1323 to 1720, assimilating a number of Spanish traditions, customs, and linguistic expressions, nowadays vividly portrayed in the folklore parades of Saint Efisio in Cagliari (May 1), the Cavalcade on Sassari (last but one Sunday in May), and the Redeemer in Nuoro (August 28).

In 1708, as a consequence of the Spanish War of Succession, the rule of the kingdom of Sardinia passed into the hands of the Austrians who landed on the island. In 1717 Cardinal Giulio Alberoni, minister of Felipe V of Spain, reoccupied Sardinia. In 1718, with the Treaty of London, Sardinia was handed over to the House of Savoy.

On 28 April 1794, during an uprising in Cagliari, two Piedmontese officials were killed. That was the start of a revolt (called the Moti rivoluzionari sardi) all over the island, which culminated in the expulsion of the tyrants. On 28 December 1795 in Sassari insurgents demonstrating against feudalism, mainly from the region of Logudoro, occupied the city. On 13 February 1796, in order to suppress a riot, the viceroy Filippo Vivalda gave to the Sardinian magistrate Giovanni Maria Angioy the role of Alternos, which meant a substitute of the viceroy himself. Angioy moved from Cagliari to Sassari, and during his journey almost all the villages joined the uprising, asking for the end of feudalism and for the independence of Sardinia's people.

In 1799, as a consequence of the Napoleonic wars in Italy, the Dukes of Savoy left Turin and took refuge in Cagliari for some fifteen years. In 1847 the Sardinians spontaneously renounced their state autonomy and formed a union with Piedmont in order to have a single parliament, a single magistracy, and a single government in Turin.

In 1848 the Italian Wars of Independence broke out for the Unification of Italy and were led by the kings of Sardinia for thirteen years. In 1861 Sardinia joined the newly founded Kingdom of Italy.

During the First World War the Sardinian soldiers of the Brigata Sassari distinguished themselves, several being decorated with gold medals and other honors. It was the first and only Italian military unit constituted exclusively from Sardinian soldiers.

The Sardinian writer Grazia Deledda won Nobel Prize for Literature in 1926.

During the fascist period, and implementation of the policy of autarky, several swamps were reclaimed around the island and agrarian communities founded. The main communities were in the area of Oristano, where the village of Mussolinia (now called Arborea) was located, and in the area adjacent the city of Alghero, within the region of Nurra, Fertilia was founded. Also established during that time was the city of Carbonia, which became the main center of mining activity. Works to dry the numerous waste lands and the reprise of mining activities favored the arrival of settlers and immigrants, at first from Veneto, and after World War II Istrians and Dalmatians from territories lost to Yugoslavia.

The repression by the fascist regime of its opponents within the region was ruthless. Antonio Gramsci, one of the founders of the Italian Communist Party, was arrested and died in prison. Michele Schirru was executed after a failed assassination plot against Benito Mussolini.

Postwar period

In 1946 by popular referendum Italy became a republic, with Sardinia administered since 1948 by special statute of autonomy.

By 1951, malaria was successfully eliminated with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation, which facilitated the commencement of the Sardinian tourist boom, mainly focused on beach holidays and elite tourism. Today about ten million people visit the island every year.

With the increase in tourism, coal decreased in importance. In the 1950s and 1960s the greatest Sardinian migration began. However, in the early 1960s an industrialization effort was commenced, the so-called Piani di Rinascita (rebirth plans), with the initiation of major infrastructure projects on the island. These included the construction of new dams and roads, reforestation, agricultural zones on reclaimed marshland, and large industrial complexes (primarily oil refineries and related petrochemical operations). With the creation of petrochemical industries, thousands of ex-farmers became industrial workers. Nevertheless, following 1973 the international oil crisis caused the termination of employment for thousands of workers employed in the petrochemical industries.

The economic crisis, unemployment, and the forced militarization of the island territory (70% of Italian military bases were located in Sardinia) aggravated the crime rate, with increasing kidnappings and political subversion. Communist groups flourished, the most famous being Barbagia Rossa, which perpetrated several terrorist actions between the 1970s and the early 1980s.

In 1983 a militant of an autonomist party, the Sardinian Action Party (Partito Sardo d'Azione), was elected president of the regional parliament, and in the 1980s several independentist movements were born; in the 1990s some of them became political parties, and in 2006 in the Province of Sassari the first independentist militant was elected. In 1999 Sardinian received official status together with Italian.

Today Sardinia is phasing in as an EU region, with a diversified economy focused on tourism and the tertiary sector; the economic efforts of last twenty years have reduced the handicap of insularity, for example with low-cost air companies and advanced information technology, thanks to the CRS4 (Center for Advanced Studies, Research and Development in Sardinia), which developed the first Italian website in 1991 and webmail in 1995, which brought to birth several telecommunication companies and internet service providers based on the island, as Videonline in 1994 and Tiscali in 1998.

A G8 summit was planned to be held in Sardinia, on the island of La Maddalena, in July 2009. The Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, in April 2009, decided, without convoking the Italian parliament or consulting the governor of Sardinia, to move the summit, even though the works were almost completed, to L'Aquila, provoking protests among Sardinians that the autonomous status of Sardinia had been violated.

Economy

Taken as a whole, Sardinia's economic conditions are such that the island is in a slightly better position than the average southern regions. The greatest economic development has taken place inland, in the provinces of Cagliari and Sassari, characterized by a certain amount of enterprise. According to Eurostat, the 2007 GDP was €33,823.2 million, resulting in a €20,627 GDP per capita, in 2009.

The Sardinian economy is penalised due to high costs of transportation of goods and electricity, which is double compared to the continental Italian regions. Sardinia is the only Italian region that produces surplus of electricity, which supply power to the region, and not imports power from abroad, whereas the problem the region had encountered was insufficient transmission links as it is an island situated over 100 km from the mainland . In 2009 the new submarine power cable Sapei entered into operation, it links the Fiume Santo Power Station, in Sardinia, to the converter stations in Latina, in the Italian peninsula, the SACOI is another submarine power cable that links Sardinia to Italy, crossing Corsica, from 1965.The under construction submarine gas pipeline GALSI, will link Algeria to Sardinia and further Italy, in 2012.

The unemployment rate is higher than the national average, but lower than the South Italy regions.