Palazzo della Provincia: An Administrative and Civic Palace in Sassari
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Modern
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- Italian
- Site type
- Civic
- Remains
- Palace
On this page8 sections
History
Palazzo della Provincia, also known as Palazzo Sciuti, is a late academic Neoclassical administrative palace in Sassari, Italy, built in the nineteenth century as the historic seat of the Province and Prefecture of Sassari. After Italian unification, these institutions, together with the Municipality, shared cramped premises in the Teatro Civico, Palazzo d’Usini, and Palazzo Ducale. The new building was intended to provide a suitably representative home for civic administration.
Construction of the administrative palace
In 1872, the authorities decided to construct the palace on the northeastern side of Piazza d’Italia. At that time, the site was approximately one hectare of unpaved ground. The project received an allocation of 600,000 lire, and engineer Giovanni Borgnini was commissioned to design the building with the assistance of engineer Eugenio Sironi. The Gianuario Mura firm carried out the construction, while Fratelli Clemente, Filippo Dasala, and Angelo Tola produced the fittings and furnishings.
The first stone was laid on 18 October 1873. The palace was inaugurated in 1878, although its frescoes were completed only in 1882. The final construction cost reached 1,100,000 lire. A civic clock formed the crowning element of the facade. Produced in Turin by the Regia Fabbrica Nazionale di Orologeria e meccanismi di precisione P. Granaglia & C., it began operating on 10 July 1880.
Civic painting and Sardinian history
The palace’s principal hall acquired its decoration through a public competition held by the Provincial Deputation of Sassari in 1875. The Accademia nazionale di San Luca in Rome selected the design submitted by the Sicilian painter Giuseppe Sciuti. His fresco showed Giommaria Angioy, a Sardinian political and military leader associated with the anti-feudal movement of 1796, entering Sassari.
Sciuti completed the Angioy fresco at the beginning of the 1880s. He prepared the composition through nineteenth-century historical literature and illustrated books, acquired antique weapons and costumes, and made life studies of Sassari’s townspeople and farmers for the figures in the scene. The Provincial Council then commissioned him to decorate the end wall of the hall with The Proclamation of the Republic of Sassari. Completed in July 1881, the painting presents an idealized meeting in the old City Hall. Municipal elders, the Podestà, or chief magistrate, and the Greater Council hear Sassari’s ambassadors read the terms of the convention concluded with the Republic of Genoa on 24 March 1294.
That convention required the people of Sassari to swear obedience to Genoa while recognizing the city’s municipal autonomy, including the right to formulate its own statutes and ordinances. Sciuti’s works formed the first large cycle of civil painting in Sardinia and gave the administrative building a historical program centered on Sardinian political memory.
Changes to the palace and square
In 1899, the queen’s room was arranged for the visit of Queen Margherita and King Umberto. In the same year, a monument to King Victor Emmanuel II was placed at the center of Piazza d’Italia, aligned with the palace entrance. Made by the Piedmontese sculptor Giuseppe Sartorio, it commemorated Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of unified Italy, who reigned from 1861 to 1878.
The relationship between the palace and the square changed in 1923, when a staircase was built in front of the building and partly reduced the scenic effect of the square’s inclined plane. The palace continues to serve an institutional and administrative function and remains associated with the Province of Sassari and the Prefecture. In 1983, the painter Aligi Sassu donated to Sassari the large fresco The Myth of Prometheus, which was transferred onto canvas and installed on a wall of the grand staircase.
Remains
Palazzo della Provincia occupies an entire urban block and rises approximately 28 metres. Its 4,456-square-metre floor area contains 265 rooms, a porticoed ceremonial courtyard, two service courtyards, and a large garden. The principal facade faces Piazza d’Italia and follows the late academic Neoclassical style, which revived architectural forms associated with ancient Greece and Rome.
Facade and circulation
The facade’s central section is arranged across the two upper floors with six giant-order Corinthian semicolumns. The Corinthian order is recognized by its ornate capitals, traditionally decorated with acanthus leaves. At the sides, the outer semicolumns are accompanied by recessed pilasters, two on the left and one on the right, while the lateral sections recede further. The entrance opens into a large atrium, where memorial plaques to those who fell in the First World War are displayed on one wall.
Beyond the atrium, a corridor borders the porticoed courtyard and distributes rooms along its longitudinal sides. The interior circulation includes a ceremonial staircase and two additional staircases connecting with the piano nobile, the principal representative floor above the ground level. The rooms and offices have wallpapered interiors and parquet floors. On the piano nobile, the vaults rise 6.30 metres and the representative rooms facing Piazza d’Italia include the president’s room, an ante-room and salon, the executive committee room, the council chamber, another salon, the ballroom, the king’s room, and the queen’s room.
Sala Sciuti
The council chamber, known as the Sala Sciuti, has a vault approximately 12.60 metres high. Twelve telamons, sculpted male figures used as architectural supports, stand at mid-height. The floor is formed from coloured, inlaid marble, and finely crafted marble fireplaces furnish the hall.
Sciuti’s fresco cycle fills the chamber with scenes and figures drawn from Sardinian and civic history. It includes the depiction of Giommaria Angioy’s entry into Sassari and The Proclamation of the Republic of Sassari on the end wall. Eleonora d’Arborea, the medieval ruler of the Sardinian giudicato of Arborea associated with the Carta de Logu, appears with Amsicora, an ancient Sardinian leader known for resistance to Carthaginian rule, on the corners and side walls. The vault fresco covers approximately 90 square metres and presents an allegory of the homeland.
Other representative interiors
The other representative rooms on the piano nobile were decorated by the painters Giovanni Dancardi and Davide Dechiffer. The grand staircase also displays Aligi Sassu’s The Myth of Prometheus, a large fresco transferred onto canvas. Its subject refers to the Greek myth of Prometheus, who brought fire to humanity and was punished by Zeus.
