Kingdom of Sardinia | |||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1324–1720 | |||||||||||||||
Anthem: S'hymnu sardu nationale "The Sardinian National Anthem" | |||||||||||||||
![]() Map of the Kingdom of Sardinia | |||||||||||||||
Status |
| ||||||||||||||
Capital | |||||||||||||||
Common languages | Sardinian, Corsican, Catalan, and Spanish [2] | ||||||||||||||
Religion | Roman Catholicism (official) | ||||||||||||||
Demonym(s) | Sardinian | ||||||||||||||
Government | Feudal monarchy | ||||||||||||||
King | |||||||||||||||
• 1324–1327 (first) | James II | ||||||||||||||
• 1720 (last before the Savoyard rule) | Charles VI | ||||||||||||||
Historical era | |||||||||||||||
1297 | |||||||||||||||
1324 | |||||||||||||||
1708 | |||||||||||||||
1717 | |||||||||||||||
1720 | |||||||||||||||
1720 | |||||||||||||||
Currency | |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
Today part of | Italy |
The Kingdom of Sardinia was a feudal state in Southern Europe created in the early 14th century and a possession of the Crown of Aragon first and then of the Spanish Empire until 1708, then of the Habsburgs until 1717, and then of the Spanish Empire again until 1720.
The kingdom was a part of the Crown of Aragon and initially consisted of the islands of Sardinia and a claim to the island of Corsica, sovereignty over both of which was claimed by the papacy, which granted them as a fief, the Regnum Sardiniae et Corsicae (Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica), [nb 1] to King James II of Aragon in 1297. Beginning in 1324, James and his successors conquered the island of Sardinia and established de facto their de jure authority. In 1420, after the Sardinian–Aragonese war, the last competing claim to the island was bought out. After the union of the crowns of Aragon and Castile, Sardinia became a part of the burgeoning Spanish Empire.
In 1720, the island was ceded by the Habsburg and Bourbon claimants to the Spanish throne to the Duke of Savoy, Victor Amadeus II of Savoy. Sardinia retained its autonomous institutions according to the treaty of cession until 1847, when King Charles Albert enacted the Perfect Fusion, which expanded to the island the centralized administrative system which was adopted by the mainland Savoyard state during the Napoleonic era.
In 238 BC, Sardinia became, along with Corsica, a joint province of the Roman Republic. The Romans ruled the island until the middle of the 5th century when it was occupied by the Vandals, who had also settled in north Africa. In 534 AD it was reconquered by the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. It remained a Byzantine province until the Muslim conquest of Sicily in the 9th century. After that, communications with the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, became very difficult, and powerful families of the island assumed control of the land.
Starting from 705 to 706, Saracens from north Africa (recently conquered by Arab armies) harassed the population of the coastal cities. Facing Arab attempts to sack and conquer the island, while having almost no outside help, Sardinia used the principle of translatio imperii ("transfer of rule") and continued to organize itself along the ancient Roman and Byzantine model. The island was not the personal property of the ruler and of his family, as was then the dominant practice in western Europe, but rather a separate entity and during the Byzantine rule, a monarchical republic, as it had been since Roman times.
Information about the Sardinian political situation in the following centuries is scarce. Due to Saracen attacks, in the 9th century Tharros was abandoned in favor of Oristano, after more than 1800 years of occupation; Caralis, Porto Torres and numerous other coastal centres suffered the same fate. There is a record of another massive Saracen sea attack in 1015–16 from the Balearics, commanded by Mujāhid al-ʿĀmirī (Latinized as Museto). The Saracen attempt to invade the island was stopped by the Judicates with the support of the fleets of the maritime republics of Pisa and Genoa. Pope Benedict VIII also requested aid from the two maritime republics in the struggle against the Arabs. [5]
After the Great Schism, Rome made many efforts to restore Latinity to the Sardinian church,[ dubious – discuss ] politics and society, and to finally reunify the island under one Catholic ruler, as it had been for all of southern Italy, when the Byzantines had been driven away by Catholic Normans. Even the title of "Judge" was a Byzantine reminder of the Greek church and state, [6] in times of harsh relations between eastern and western churches (Massacre of the Latins, 1182, Siege of Constantinople (1204), Recapture of Constantinople, 1261).
Before the Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica, the archons (Ancient Greek : ἄρχοντες), or judices in Latin, [7] [8] who reigned in the island from the 9th or 10th century until the beginning of the 11th century, can be considered real kings of all Sardinia (Κύριε βοήθε ιοῦ δούλου σου Tουρκοτουρίου ἅρχωντοσ Σαρδινίας καί τής δούλης σου Γετιτ), [9] [10] [11] even though nominal vassals of the Byzantine emperors. Of these sovereigns, only two names are known: Turcoturiu and Salusiu (Tουρκοτουρίου βασιλικοῦ πρωτοσπαθαρίου [12] (καὶ Σαλουσίου των εὐγενεστάτων ἀρχόντων), [13] [14] who probably ruled in the 10th century. The archons still wrote in Greek or Latin, but one of the oldest documents left of the Judicate of Cagliari (the Carta Volgare), issued by Torchitorio I de Lacon-Gunale in 1070, was already written in the Romance Sardinian language, albeit with the Greek alphabet. [15]
The realm was divided into four small kingdoms, the Judicates of Cagliari, Arborea, Gallura and Logudoro, perfectly organized as was the previous realm, but was now under the influence of the papacy, which claimed sovereignty over the entire island, and in particular of the Italian states of Genoa and Pisa, that through alliances with the "judges" (the local rulers), secured their political and economic zones of influence. While Genoa was mostly, but not always, in the north and west regions of Sardinia, that is, in the Judicates of Gallura and Logudoro; Pisa was mostly, but not always, in the south and east, in the Judicates of Cagliari and Arborea. [16] [17] That was the cause of conflicts leading to a long war between the Judges, who regarded themselves as kings fighting against rebellious nobles. [18] [19]
Later, the title of King of Sardinia was granted by the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire to Barisone II of Arborea, [20] and subsequently also to Enzio of Sardinia. The first could not reunify the island under his rule, despite years of war against the other Sardinian judges, and he finally concluded a peace treaty with them in 1172. [21] The second did not have the opportunity. Invested with the title from his father, Emperor Frederick II in 1239, he was soon recalled by his parent and appointed Imperial Vicar for Italy. He died in 1272 without direct recognized heirs after a detention of 23 years in a prison in Bologna.
The Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica, later only the Kingdom of Sardinia from 1460, [22] was a state whose king was the King of Aragon, who started to conquer it in 1324, gained full control in 1410, and directly ruled it until 1460. In that year it was incorporated into a sort of confederation of states, each with its own institutions, called the Crown of Aragon, and united only in the person of the king. The Crown of Aragon was made by a council of representatives of the various states and grew in importance for the main purpose of separating the legacy of Ferdinand II of Aragon from that of Isabella I of Castile when they married in 1469.
![]() |
History of Sardinia |
The idea of the kingdom was created in 1297 by Pope Boniface VIII, as a hypothetical entity created for James II of Aragon under a secret clause in the Treaty of Anagni. This was an inducement to join in the effort to restore Sicily, then under the rule of James's brother Frederick III of Sicily, to the Angevin dynasty over the oppositions of the Sicilians. The two islands proposed for this new kingdom were occupied by other states and fiefs at the time. In Sardinia, three of the four states that had succeeded Byzantine imperial rule in the 9th century had passed through marriage and partition under the direct or indirect control of Pisa and Genoa in the 40 years preceding the Anagni treaty. Genoa had also ruled Corsica since conquering the island nearly two centuries before (c. 1133).
There were other reasons beside this papal decision: it was the final successful result of the long fight against the Ghibelline (pro-imperial) city of Pisa and the Holy Roman Empire itself. Furthermore, Sardinia was then under the control of the very Catholic kings of Aragon, and the last result of rapprochement of the island to Rome. The Sardinian church had never been under the control of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople; it was an autonomous province loyal to Rome and belonging to the Latin Church, but during the Byzantine period became influenced by Byzantine liturgy and culture.
In 1297, Pope Boniface VIII, intervening between the Houses of Anjou and Aragon, established on paper a Regnum Sardiniae et Corsicae that would be a fief of the papacy. Then, ignoring the indigenous states which already existed, the pope offered his newly invented fief to James II of Aragon, promising him papal support should he wish to conquer Pisan Sardinia in exchange for Sicily. In 1323 James II formed an alliance with Hugh II of Arborea and, following a military campaign which lasted a year or so, occupied the Pisan territories of Cagliari and Gallura along with the city of Sassari, claiming the territory as the Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica. [23]
In 1353, Arborea waged war on Aragon. The Crown of Aragon did not reduce the last of the judicates (indigenous kingdoms of Sardinia) until 1420. The Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica retained its separate character as part of the Crown of Aragon and was not merely incorporated into the Kingdom of Aragon. At the time of his struggles with Arborea, Peter IV of Aragon granted an autonomous legislature to the kingdom and its legal traditions. The kingdom was governed in the king's name by a viceroy.
In 1420, Alfonso V of Aragon, King of Sicily and heir to Aragon, bought the remaining territories for 100,000 gold florins of the Judicate of Arborea in the 1420 from the last judge, William III of Narbonne, and the Kingdom of Sardinia extended throughout the island, except for the city of Castelsardo (at that time called Casteldoria or Castelgenovese) that was stolen from the Doria in 1448, and renamed Castillo Aragonés (Aragonese Castle). [24]
Corsica, which had never been conquered, was dropped from the formal title and Sardinia passed with the Crown of Aragon to a united Spain. The defeat of the local kingdoms, communes and signorie, the firm Aragonese (later Spanish) rule, the introduction of a sterile feudalism, as well as the discovery of the Americas, provoked an unstoppable decline of the Kingdom of Sardinia. A short period of uprisings occurred under the local noble Leonardo Alagon, Marquess of Oristano, who defended his territories against Viceroy Nicolò Carroz and managed to defeat the viceroy's army in the 1470s, but was later crushed at the Battle of Macomer in 1478, ending any further revolts in the island. The unceasing attacks from north African pirates and a series of plagues (in 1582, 1652 and 1655) further worsened the situation.
Although the "Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica" could be said to have started as a questionable and extraordinary de jure state in 1297, its de facto existence began in 1324 when, called by their allies of the Judicate of Arborea in the course of war with the Republic of Pisa, James II seized the Pisan territories in the former states of Cagliari and Gallura and asserted his papally-approved title. In 1347, Aragon made war on landlords of the Doria House and the Malaspina House, who were citizens of the Republic of Genoa, which controlled most of the lands of the former Logudoro state in north-western Sardinia, including the city of Alghero and the semiautonomous Republic of Sassari, and added them to its direct domains.
The Judicate of Arborea, the only Sardinian state that remained independent of foreign domination, proved far more difficult to subdue. Threatened by the Aragonese claims of suzerainty and consolidation of the rest of the island, in 1353 Arborea, under the leadership of Marianus IV, started the conquest of the remaining Sardinian territories, which formed the Kingdom of Sardinia. In 1368 an Arborean offensive succeeded in nearly driving the Aragonese from the island, reducing the Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica to just the port cities of Cagliari and Alghero, and incorporating everything else into their own kingdom.
A peace treaty returned the Aragonese their previous possessions in 1388 but tensions continued. In 1382, the Arborean army led by Brancaleone Doria again swept most of the island into Arborean rule. This situation lasted until 1409 when the army of the Judicate of Arborea suffered a heavy defeat by the Aragonese army in the Battle of Sanluri. After the sale of the remaining territories for 100,000 gold florins to the Judicate of Arborea in 1420, the Kingdom of Sardinia extended throughout the island, except for the city of Castelsardo (at that time called Casteldoria or Castelgenovese), which had been stolen from the Doria in 1448. The subduing of Sardinia having taken a century, Corsica, which had never been wrestled from the Genoese, was dropped from the formal title of the Kingdom.
In 1527, during the Franco-Spanish War, a French army of 4000 men led by the Italian Renzo da Ceri attacked the north of the island, besieging Castellaragonese and sacking Sorso and then Sassari for almost a month. [25] In 1566, the first typography of Sardinia was established in Cagliari, while in 1607 and 1617 were founded the University of Cagliari and the University of Sassari. In the late 15th and in the early 16th century the Spaniards built watchtowers all along the coast (today called "Spanish towers") to protect the island against Ottoman incursions. In 1637 a French fleet led by Henri, Count of Harcourt sacked Oristano for about a week.
The Spanish domination of Sardinia ended at the beginning of the 18th century, as a result of the War of the Spanish succession. By the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713, Spain's European empire was divided: Savoy received Sicily and parts of the Duchy of Milan, while Charles VI (the Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria), received the Spanish Netherlands, the Kingdom of Naples, Sardinia, and the bulk of the Duchy of Milan.
During the War of the Quadruple Alliance, Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy, Prince of Piedmont, and by now also King of Sicily, had to agree to yield Sicily to the Austrian Habsburgs and receive Sardinia in exchange. The exchange was formally ratified in the Treaty of The Hague of 17 February 1720. Because the Kingdom of Sardinia had existed since the 14th century, the exchange allowed Victor Amadeus to retain the title of king in spite of the loss of Sicily.
Victor Amadeus initially resisted the exchange, and until 1723 he continued to style himself King of Sicily rather than King of Sardinia. The state took the official title of Kingdom of Sardinia, Cyprus and Jerusalem, as the House of Savoy still claimed the thrones of Cyprus and Jerusalem, although both had long been under Ottoman rule. Under the Perfect Fusion of 1847, the local Sardinian institutions including the Viceroy were abolished; however, the title of King of Sardinia was maintained by the House of Savoy until their fall from the Italian throne in 1946.
Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, and one of the twenty regions of Italy. It is located west of the Italian Peninsula, north of Tunisia and 16.45 km south of the French island of Corsica.
Archaeological evidence of prehistoric human settlement on the island of Sardinia is present in the form of nuraghes and other prehistoric monuments, which dot the land. The recorded history of Sardinia begins with its contacts with the various people who sought to dominate western Mediterranean trade in classical antiquity: Phoenicians, Punics and Romans. Initially under the political and economic alliance with the Phoenician cities, it was partly conquered by Carthage in the late 6th century BC and then entirely by Rome after the First Punic War. The island was included for centuries in the Roman province of Sardinia and Corsica, which would be incorporated into the diocese of Italia suburbicaria in 3rd and 7th centuries.
The Judicates, in English also referred to as Sardinian Kingdoms, Sardinian Judgedoms or Judicatures, were independent states that took power in Sardinia in the Middle Ages, between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries. They were sovereign states with summa potestas, each with a ruler called judge, with the powers of a king.
The Judicate of Arborea or the Kingdom of Arborea was one of the four independent judicates into which the island of Sardinia was divided in the Middle Ages. It occupied the central-west portion of the island, wedged between Logudoro to the north and east, Cagliari to the south and east, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. To the northeast of Logudoro was Gallura, with which Arborea had far less interaction. Arborea outlasted her neighbours, surviving well into the 15th century. At its greatest territorial extent it occupied the entire island except the cities of Alghero and Cagliari. The earliest known judicial seat was Tharros, though Oristano served as capital for most of its existence.
The Judicate of Logudoro or Torres was one of the four kingdoms or iudicati into which Sardinia was divided during the Middle Ages. It occupied the northwest part of the island from the 11th through the 13th century, bordering the Gallura to the east, Arborea to the south, and Cagliari to the southeast. Its original capital was Porto Torres. The region is still called Logudoro today.
The flag of Sardinia, also referred to as the Four Moors, represents and symbolizes the island of Sardinia (Italy) and its people. It was also the historical flag and coat of arms of the Aragonese, then Spanish, and later Savoyard Kingdom of Sardinia. It was first officially adopted by the autonomous region in 1950 with a revision in 1999, describing it as a "white field with a red cross and a bandaged Moor's head facing away from the hoist in each quarter".
The Judicate of Cagliari was one of the four kingdoms or judicates into which Sardinia was divided during the Middle Ages.
The Judicate of Gallura was one of four Sardinian judicates in the Middle Ages. These were independent states whose rulers bore the title iudex, judge. Gallura, a name which comes from gallus, meaning rooster (cock), was subdivided into ten curatoriae governed by curatores under the judge. In the 13th century, the arms of Gallura contained a rooster.
John, nicknamed Chiano, was the Judge of Arborea from 1297 to his death.
The Kingdom of Sardinia, also referred to as the Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica among other names, was a country in Southern Europe from the late 13th until the mid-19th century, and from 1297 to 1768 for the Corsican part of this kingdom. The kingdom was a member of the Council of Aragon and initially consisted of the islands of Corsica and Sardinia, sovereignty over both of which was claimed by the papacy, which granted them as a fief, the Regnum Sardiniae et Corsicae, to King James II of Aragon in 1297. Beginning in 1324, James and his successors conquered the island of Sardinia and established de facto their de jure authority. In 1420, after the Sardinian–Aragonese war, the last competing claim to the island was bought out. After the union of the crowns of Aragon and Castile, Sardinia became a part of the burgeoning Spanish Empire.
The Sardinians, or Sards, are a Romance language-speaking ethnic group indigenous to Sardinia, from which the western Mediterranean island and autonomous region of Italy derives its name.
This article presents a history of Cagliari, an Italian municipality and the capital city of the island of Sardinia. The city has been continuously inhabited since at least the neo-lithic period. Due to its strategic location in the Mediterranean and natural harbor, the city was prized and highly sought after by a number of Mediterranean empires and cultures.
The Aragonese conquest of Sardinia took place between 1323 and 1326. The island of Sardinia was at the time subject to the influence of the Republic of Pisa, the Pisan della Gherardesca family, Genoa and of the Genoese families of Doria and the Malaspina; the only native political entity survived was the Judicate of Arborea, allied with the Crown of Aragon. The financial difficulties due to the wars in Sicily, the conflict with the Crown of Castile in the land of Murcia and Alicante (1296–1304) and the failed attempt to conquer Almeria (1309) explain the delay of James II of Aragon in bringing the conquest of Sardinia, enfeoffed to him by Pope Boniface VIII in 1297.
Hampsicora was a Sardo-Punic political leader and landowner of Sardinia, and the leader of the major anti-Roman revolt in the province of 215 BC.
The Byzantine age in Sardinian history conventionally begins with the island's reconquest by Justinian I in 534. This ended the Vandal dominion of the island after about 80 years. There was still a substantial continuity with the Roman phase at this time.
The Sardinian–Aragonese war was a late medieval conflict lasting from 1353 to 1420. The fight was over supremacy of the land and took place between the Judicate of Arborea -- allied with the Sardinian branch of the Doria family and Genoa -- and the Kingdom of Sardinia, the latter of which had been part of the Crown of Aragon since 1324.
Sardinian surnames are surnames with origins from the Sardinian language or a long, identifiable tradition on the Western Mediterranean island of Sardinia.
Francesco Cesare Casula is an Italian historian from Sardinia.
The Kingdom of Sardinia was the Savoyard state of the Kingdom of Sardinia from 1720 to 1861. The kingdom united the island of Sardinia with the mainland possessions of the House of Savoy. Before 1847, only the island of Sardinia proper was part of the Kingdom of Sardinia, while the other mainland possessions were held by the Savoys in their own right, hence forming a composite monarchy and a personal union, which was formally referred to as the "States of His Majesty the King of Sardinia". This situation was changed by the Perfect Fusion act of 1847, which created a unitary kingdom. Due to the fact that Piedmont was the seat of power and prominent part of the entity, the state is also referred to as Sardinia–Piedmont or Piedmont–Sardinia, and sometimes erroneously as the Kingdom of Piedmont.
... 1479, Regno di 'Sardegna e Corsica' malgrado non rappresentasse tutta la Sardegna e malgrado la Corsica non fosse interessata ma considerata solo ambita (non sarà mai conquistata). Poi, dal 1479, si chiamo solo Regno di Sardegna ... poi solo Regno di Sardegna (fino al 1861), poi Regno d'Italia (fino al 1946), e, finalmente, Repubblica Italiana. E, tutto questo, senza alcuna soluzione di continuità.[... 1479, Kingdom of 'Sardinia and Corsica' even though it did not represent all of Sardinia and even though Corsica was not interested but only considered coveted (it will never be conquered). Then, from 1479, it was called only the Kingdom of Sardinia ... then only the Kingdom of Sardinia (until 1861), then the Kingdom of Italy (until 1946), and, finally, the Italian Republic. And, all this, without any solution of continuity.]
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: postscript (link)La senyoria no la tenim ne havem haùda ne del rey ne da regina, e no som tenguts a rey ne a regina axi com eren los dits harons de Sicilia, abans de la dita senyoria e domini obtenim per Madonna Elionor, nostra muller, che és jutgessa d'Arborea e filla e succehidora per son pare per lo jutgat d'Arborea, la qual Casa d'Arborea ha D anys que ha hauda senyioria en la present illa[We had our lordship not from any king or queen and have not to be loyal to any king or queen as sicilian Barons, because we had our lordship from Madonna Elionor, our wife, who is Lady Judge (Juighissa in Sardinian) of Arborea, daughter and successor of her father of the Judicate of Arborea, and this House of Arborea has reigned for five hundreds years in this island.]