Sassari Castle: An Aragonese Fortress in Italy
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.3
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Crown of Aragon, Spanish
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page10 sections
History
Sassari Castle, also known as the Castello di Sassari or Aragonese Castle, is a fourteenth-century fortress in Sassari, Italy, built around 1330 under the Aragonese Crown. Its construction took place during two rebellions by Sassari against Aragonese rule. The castle formed part of the political and military system through which Sardinia was incorporated into the wider Aragonese and later Spanish imperial sphere.
Aragonese and Spanish rule
During the Spanish period, the fortress became the headquarters of Sassari’s armed garrison under the governor. From 1563, it was the only seat of the Inquisition in Sardinia. The Inquisition was a church-backed judicial institution that investigated and prosecuted religious deviation, so the castle acquired an island-wide judicial function as well as its military role.
The fortress also served as a prison, principally holding noble and ecclesiastical prisoners. Capital sentences were carried out there. Its use for confinement and punishment made the castle an important part of the city’s institutional life during the Spanish period.
Savoy rule and demolition
Under the Savoy dynasty, the ruling house that governed Sardinia and later the Kingdom of Italy, the castle became a barracks for the Italian Royal Army. It retained this military use until 1877.
That year, the Savoy government, supported by Sassari’s liberal-left municipal council, decided to demolish the fortress. The project aimed to remove a physical symbol of the preceding domination and create space for the Lamarmora Barracks, new squares, and porticoes in the city’s expanding areas. The demolition was incomplete. Parts of the castle remained beneath the lower section of Piazza Castello, while a section of the present barracks was constructed over the fortress foundations.
Archaeological recovery
Archaeological work beginning in 2008 exposed the foundations of the walls, particularly the inner walls, together with part of the ground floor, the entrance portal, prison rooms, and other remains. In some places, especially around the barbican, two levels of fortification survived below street level. The underground structures were consolidated and made accessible as an archaeological area, inaugurated in December 2011.
The castle’s remains were also presented in the exhibition Sassari sottosopra. 10 anni di archeologia urbana, held at the Palazzo della Frumentaria from December 2009 to March 2010. From 2010, consolidation work addressed the moat in Piazza Cavallino de Honestis. The moat was covered and made accessible from within the fortress, while a metal-and-glass structure outside allowed part of the monument to be seen.
Remains
Fortress plan and defensive works
The fortress had a trapezoidal plan with five corner towers and another tower at the centre of the façade. Its southern entrance lay below this central tower, while three forward towers faced the higher part of Sassari’s historic centre. The façade was built of exposed stone. A moat several metres deep stood before the fortress and was strengthened over time until it developed into a barbican, an outer defensive work placed in front of the main enclosure.
The barbican and underground galleries
The sixteenth-century barbican is the principal surviving section of the fortress. It included a broad area in front of the main enclosure and two underground levels with corridors and cannon positions directed towards the town. The related moat dates from the fifteenth century and lies beneath the garden of present-day Piazza Castello. In some sections it reaches almost 9 metres deep. The lower accessible section extends for about 60 metres, while the upper route is shorter because its passage is less extensive.
Part of the ground floor and the entrance portal exposed in 2008 probably belonged to the antemural, an advanced defensive structure before the main enclosure. A footbridge leads to the lower part of the moat, and an original internal staircase connects its lower and upper levels. Separate entrances serve the two directions of movement. The galleries are protected by a metal-and-glass structure and LED lighting, with part of the plaza-level covering formed by a planted area. A glazed section brings natural light to the antemural.
Campanone tower and water passages
A spiral staircase gives access to the Campanone tower, whose name means “big bell.” Slit-like openings in the walls facing the town probably accommodated cannon. Beneath the urban area, an old underground water source was reached historically by descending about 12 metres and following a passage beside the tower.
These subterranean water passages are locally called dragonaie, ancient urban springs associated with the area’s limestone terrain. A five-petalled stone feature brought to light at street level in April 2009 functioned as a fountain from 1890, when Sassari’s aqueduct was inaugurated. The feature may be the forgotten Pozzo Regio, described as a circular stone fountain with jets of clear, non-saline water. The passage connected with the spring was intercepted during construction of a Second World War air-raid shelter, and a route that appears medieval remains visible on the vault of the modern gallery as it rises towards the gardens of Piazza Castello.
Prison rooms
Excavations revealed a medieval prison and several rooms used as cells over the centuries. Their stone walls carry drawings and reliefs carved by prisoners, including religious and macabre imagery. The rooms may also have served as cisterns, built reservoirs for collecting or storing water.
Air-raid shelter and industrial remains
One of the two air-raid shelters in Piazza Castello was uncovered during the 2008 excavations. Used by the people of Sassari during the Second World War, it extends for about 150 metres underground. One branch reaches the Palazzo delle Poste, the city’s post-office building. Its vaults are about 4 metres high, and its galleries are approximately 3 metres wide. The shelter forms part of the site’s modern military history and intersects the older subterranean water route near the Campanone tower.
Beside the castle stood a majolica factory, a producer of tin-glazed earthenware, from at least the sixteenth century. Its excavated remains include production debris and other traces of manufacture. Together with the fortifications, prison rooms, water passages, and air-raid shelter, these industrial remnants preserve successive uses of the area around the former fortress.
