History of Sassari

The territory of the city of Sassari offers many examples of the presence of Neolithic recently, as the imposing of Monte d'ziqqurat Queue. But Sassari is a city "young", which dates from the late Middle Ages, probably founded by inhabitants of the Roman port of Turris Lybisonis (now Porto Torres), which moved inland to escape incursions of Saracen pirates who came from the sea.

Sassari, in the early thirteenth century, was the most populated city of Giudicato Torres, and enjoyed a certain freedom and independence thanks to the strong presence of the maritime republics of Pisa and Genoa, who refused to submit to the laws of Giudicato Torres. The two republics had begun marinate a long time to exert their influence on the island, first economic and political, as to get to clash with the authority of judges. The strong presence of Pisa and Genoa contributed to the formation of a new middle class composed of merchants and craftsmen, open to new traffic and too impatient for the legislation of the time, too outdated and restrictive, this situation led to a series of conflicts, who came to their climax in 1236 with the killing of the judge Torres, Barisone III, by the same Sassarese.

After the assassination of Judge Torres, the city of Sassari, along with a good part of the Province Turritana, passed in 1274 under the domination of Pisa. The growing importance of Sassari was the origin of the long disputes between Pisa and Genoa for control of the city, which ended in 1284 with the Battle of Meloria and the victory of the fleet Genovese on Pisani. In 1294 the city of Sassari became the first and only free the town of Sardinia, confederate in Genoa, and promulgated the Statutes Sassarese organization representing the legal, political and administrative city. The Statutes Sassari, we are known in a Sardinian-logudorese of 1316, were divided into three parts: the first covered the right audience, the second on civil law and the third criminal law.

In 1323 Sardinia was granted to Aragonesi by Boniface VIII, who in 1297 invested the title of James II King of Sardinia. A Sassari, after an initial phase in which it formed a group pro-Aragonese, was immediately clear that the new allies aimed at strict control of the city: in 1325 there was thus a first rebellion, immediately suppressed by the Aragonese, which followed a long period of revolts that lasted until 1417, when King Alfonso V the Magnanimous Sassari promoted to the rank of Royal City, a city ruled by the king directly and free from the feudal system. The Aragonese domination was consolidated only from 1420, while being increasingly reinforcing circle of noblemen from Spain, who enjoyed special privileges and drew their income from estates which were granted.

In In 1479 the city of Sassari, along with the island came under Spanish domination. Between the end of the fifteenth and early sixteenth century experienced a period of economic and social crisis, characterized by the decline of maritime trade, which has become dangerous because of pirates Saracen occupation of the city by the French troops, who from the end of 1527 and the beginning of 1528 the occupied and pillaged, and the two outbreaks fever, one of which, in 1528, would result only in Sassari, on the writers of the time, not less than 15 thousand deaths. In the second half of the sixteenth century, the city is changing after years of crisis, and the newfound economic prosperity accompanied a cultural renaissance, thanks to the introduction of the printing and dissemination of humanistic thought. In 1562 was founded by the Jesuits of the first universities Sardinia.

At the beginning of'700, in response to the War of Spanish Succession, Sassari knew for some years, the Austrian domination and lived a new period of unrest and rebellion, as in the attempted rebellion against the imposition dell'estanco, a new tax on tobacco, grown abundantly in the surrounding countryside. Later, after being returned for a short period to the Spaniards, the town of Sassari, with throughout Sardinia passed to Piedmont and Savoy as a result of the Treaty of London of 1718.

The early years of the Piedmont were characterized by major developments during the reign of Vittorio Amedeo II (1720-1730) there was a reorganization of taxation and was confirmed the existing law and with it the Statutes Sassarese, Carlo Emanuele III (1730-1773) increased sea trade through the work of rehabilitation of the port of Torres and reorganized the University (1764). The thrust, however, are alleviated riformistica with Vittorio Amedeo III (1773-1796), whose reign saw the return to a period of backwardness, which, together with a severe famine, the city led to the rebellion in April 1780, which followed the so-called revolutionary decade. In 1796 he made his triumphal entry, sent from Cagliari, the Alternos Giovanni Maria Angioy, with the result thousands of revolutionaries from all over the island. Reestablished control over Sardinia, the Savoys celery ferocity with every form of dissent towards the policy. The targeted anti-Piedmont Sassari continue until the middle of the nineteenth century.

Between the late eighteenth and throughout the nineteenth century, Sassari experienced a period of cultural renaissance and urban planning: the University was reopened, the city began to expand outside the medieval walls of the track, started the construction of new neighborhoods were built the new hospital, prisons, civic theater, schools and streets, railways and sewerage, lighting oil, and later , gas was restored the nearby Port of Torres and turn on the first shipping line links the port of Genoa and Sardinia.

At the end of '800, the city of Sassari experienced a strong economic growth and ongoing development. Political actors were Sassarese, starting in 1891, three young lawyers: Enrico Berlinguer, Peter Moro and Peter Satta Branca, which, again in 1891, they founded La Nuova Sardegna, which soon becomes the most popular newspaper in the island.

At the end of World War I, and the return of veterans, also participated in the Sassari rivendicazionistico movement of former combatants. Passed indemnify the second world war by war, the city of Sassari had to endure a severe and prolonged lack of food. The crisis of the postwar period reacted with a slow but steady economic development, which brought the city today to become the second center of Sardinia in importance.