Capoterra 1655-2005

In 2005, on the occasion of the 350th anniversary of Capoterra's refoundation, a historical conference brought together archaeologists, historians and researchers to reconstruct the history of the territory from prehistoric origins to the present day. The round table was held at Casa Melis, moderated by journalist Claudio Curusi, with institutional greetings from Mayor Giorgio Marongiu and Culture Councillor Enrico Congedo.

The conference brought to light previously unpublished information: unreported archaeological discoveries, documents from parish and municipal archives, oral testimonies from the elderly, and a heartfelt appeal for the protection of the historical heritage threatened by building development. All the speakers were from Capoterra — a signal, as Mayor Marongiu emphasised, that the community now had the intelligence and competence to address its own history directly.

The four sessions

First session — Roman and medieval origins

The first session opened with an address by archaeologist Maria Grazia Melis, a researcher in prehistory and protohistory at the University of Sassari, who had conducted the archaeological pre-census of the municipal territory. Her work started from a bitter observation: the picture of finds appeared fragmentary, damaged by extensive human activity, public works, building expansion, and the action of clandestine diggers, which in Capoterra's territory had been "really severe". What was missing above all was an archaeological risk map — a systematic mapping of culturally significant sites for their protection.

The Neolithic and the first communities

The earliest traces of human presence in Capoterra's territory date back to the Neolithic, the period when humanity made the great transition from a hunter-gatherer economy to farming and livestock keeping. Melis explained how the territory constituted a "complex ecosystem": hilly and mountainous zones, fertile plain, the sea and above all the Santa Gilla lagoon, one of Sardinia's most important wetlands, rich in fish, shellfish and salt — essential for food preservation.

Obsidian tools — the volcanic stone from Monte Arci that inserted Sardinia into a Mediterranean trade network — were found along the two main watercourses, the Rio Santa Lucia and the Rio San Geronamo, evidence of small agricultural settlements. The two most important sites were Cucuruiba (in the Terreolia/Sugoceri area, now buried under the saltworks) and Tanca di Missa (near the Rio Santa Lucia, destroyed by land reclamation works). The latter yielded decorated pottery of the San Michele di Ozieri culture, a millstone in metamorphic rock for grinding grain, and obsidian flakes attesting to contacts with central Sardinia.

From the territorial analysis of soils, Melis hypothesised that at Cucuruiba, closer to the lagoon and the sea, fishing, shellfish gathering and salt collecting were predominant activities, while at Tanca di Missa agriculture prevailed. With the Copper Age (Monte Claro culture), the pattern changed radically: the only site of this period, on the hill of Monte Arbu, occupied an elevated position — a sign of social tensions linked to land impoverishment and the birth of metallurgy.

The nuraghes and trade with Cyprus

Melis noted that the nuragic presence in the territory was relatively sparse compared to other parts of Sardinia. The main reason was geological: Capoterra is granite country, and granite is not suitable for nuraghe construction, which preferably requires basalt. However, the nuraghe of Cucuruiba — a rare case of a nuraghe on flat ground — was of great importance for its strategic position at the junction of two communication routes: one towards the Sulcis through the Cigeri, the other towards the Campidano through the Fluminimanno.

A particularly significant discovery was the finding, in an unspecified area of the territory, of a fragment of a "oxhide ingot" of the Cretan-Cypriot type, datable to the 13th century BC. These ingots were not produced in Sardinia but in the regions of Crete and Cyprus: their presence placed Capoterra within the network of trans-Mediterranean trade that linked Sardinia to the Aegean, the same network attested by the nuraghe Antigori of Sarroch, considered an international trading post.

Roman Capoterra: the villa at Su Loi and the miners from Thrace

Archaeologist Mauro Dadea shifted the story to the Roman era. The very name of the place — Caput Terra — is Latin and indicates the first point of dry land beyond the Santa Gilla lagoon along the road from Cagliari towards Nora and the Sulcis. Dadea reconstructed the 19th-century debate between Abbot Vittorio Angius, who argued for an alternative road skirting the lagoon via Decimomannu, and Alberto della Marmora, who believed the coastal strip was passable. Scholar Piero Meloni concluded that both roads must have existed: a coastal one usable in fair weather, and an inland one longer but safer when storms made the Playa shoreline impassable.

The territory was dotted with Roman country villas. The most important, at the locality of Su Loi, was partially excavated in the 1950s by superintendent Gennaro Pesce: it featured a thermal bathing complex and geometric mosaic floors. Dadea recounted with regret that this villa "nobody knows what happened to it — I searched and searched, but it disappeared as if by magic after 1950".

Off the beach at Su Loi, Roman storage jars had been discovered buried ten metres from the sea — a warehouse for agricultural produce. While the Guardia di Finanza was investigating the find, a television journalist from Videolina turned up; the officers, eager to show off the trophy, broke one of the jars they were painstakingly extracting.

But the most extraordinary discovery concerned the mines. At Bacchialino, in the Canali dei Sant'Antoni area, there was a large Roman mining settlement with structures preserved to more than one and a half metres in height, datable between the 1st–2nd and 4th–5th centuries AD. Dadea put forward a fascinating hypothesis: according to the Codex Theodosianum, entire teams of gold-mining specialists fled the imperial mines of the Thracian Chersonese, attracted by news of gold deposits in Sardinia.

The pagan sanctuary of Punta Santa Barbara

In the 1970s, forestry workers stationed at Punta Santa Barbara discovered hundreds of coins scattered across the hilltop plateau. The area was swept with a metal detector, but nobody understood their significance. Dadea managed to recover nine: they were all from the late imperial period, from Gallienus to Theodosius (late 3rd to 4th century AD). Together with the coins, fragments of burned animal bones were found — unmistakable evidence of a hilltop pagan sanctuary where coins and animals were offered to the deity through holocaust sacrifice.

Dadea also examined the case of Santa Barbara Vergine Martire Cagliaritana, whose historicity had been questioned in previous years. In 1997 the exact drawing of the inscription found on her tomb on 23 June 1621 was rediscovered in the Archdiocesan Archive of Cagliari. Palaeographic analysis revealed "Gothic epigraphic" script datable to the 12th–13th century — not a 17th-century forgery, as had been believed, but an authentic medieval inscription.

The church of Santa Barbara (1281) and the Islamic ceramic basins

The Romanesque façade of the church of Santa Barbara, built in 1281 in Romanesque-Tuscan style, displayed a series of holes that once held decorative ceramic basins. Only four remained, including a 13th-century proto-maiolica from Brindisi and a base of Islamic maiolica of Maghrebi production, decorated in cobalt and manganese. The foundation inscription stated that the church was built "with Lord Gallo as resident bishop of the church of Cagliari and Praguantino, hermit, governor of his co-hermits".

The point of no return came in 1355. When Mariano IV of Arborea declared war on the Crown of Aragon, the lord of Quirra, Berengario Carroz, marched out of the castle of San Michele and invaded the judge's holdings in the western arm of the Gulf of Angels, putting Capoterra to fire and sword. The territory remained uninhabited for three centuries, until the refoundation of 1655.

Second session — From refoundation to feudalism (1655–1840)

Historian Emanuele Atzori, described by the moderator as "the living historical memory of Capoterra", reconstructed the modern history of the village from the medieval destruction to the mid-20th century.

The Torrellas: physicians, barons and killers

The depopulated fief of Capoterra was purchased on 14 January 1494 by Ausia Torrellas, a Spanish phlebotomist physician who had grown wealthy through medical practice and intended to invest his capital in the purchase of fiefs. In 1500 he expanded the territory by buying the neighbouring fief of Sarroch. His son Nicolò became a prestigious figure in the Sardinian nobility, admitted to the military estate in 1504 and appointed Cagliari's ambassador to court in 1534.

But the Torrellas family was also the protagonist of dark events. In the factional struggles of the 16th-century nobility, Nicolò's sons sided with the Aimerich against the Arquer. The violence led to the murder of a notable, and the investigation was entrusted to Sigismondo Arquer, who paid dearly for his integrity: he died burnt alive at Toledo on 4 June 1571, charged with Lutheranism for having denounced the misconduct of the clergy and nobility.

The refoundation: 9 May 1655

The protagonist of the revival was Girolamo Torrellas, baron of Capoterra and Sarroch, born in Cagliari in 1598. A man of great culture and political acumen, he was royal vicar of Cagliari in 1631 and commissioner general of the Kingdom under viceroy Fabrizio Doria, Duke of Avellano. King Philip IV of Spain entrusted him with the mission of repopulating the territory.

Atzori revealed that he had personally discovered the exact date of the founding: 9 May 1655. He found it in a sentence of the Royal Audiencia of 27 January 1819, part of a dispute between the Community Council and Baroness Maria Rita Vico Zatrillas. The sentence made precise reference to the "primordial instrument of the foundation of the population of Capoterra" and specified that the document contained "all the agreements and conditions under which Don Girolamo Torrellas received and settled the new settlers who gave birth and existence to the present village".

The settlers had to pay the feudal lord a series of dues in kind and cash: the feudal right, the laor di corte (for those who ploughed with oxen), the prison right, the chicken right (for married men), and dues on honey, cheese, firewood, melons, wheat, barley and pasturage. In return, the baron provided land to be farmed communally.

The original place names and daily life

Atzori reconstructed the original place names: the main street was called Sa Yammara, shown in period maps as "Sugaminu Manu", corresponding to the stretch of Corso Gramsci between Via Diaz and Via Cagliari. Another street was called Sustrintu de Mesoida, today's Via Roma. From Sa Groji Santa — the square at the junction of Corso Gramsci and Via Diaz, where the baronial prison stood — ran Su Bamino de Subarropu, identifiable with Via Diaz.

Daily life in 19th-century Capoterra was hard and simple. The homes of the poorest were very sparse; the more dignified ones followed the classic Sardinian-Campidanese layout: a ground floor in a large courtyard with a well, a donkey-powered millstone for grinding grain, a domed oven, stables for horse, donkey and oxen, a working cart, a woodpile, a pigsty, a chicken coop and a small outbuilding for human waste.

There were very few craftsmen, only the essentials: a carpenter doubling as a cooper, a blacksmith, a saddler, a cobbler, a builder. There was no baker because bread was made at home at least once a week. In every decent home there was an indispensable loom for weaving, used exclusively by women.

The abolition of feudalism and the herdsmen's revolt

In 1840 the redemption of the fief was decreed by King Carlo Alberto. Capoterra contributed 1,161 Sardinian lire. The Savoy government divided the communal lands into two-hectare plots and assigned them by public draw on 14 March 1845, giving priority to the landless. About ninety families became landowners, with the obligation to fence and cultivate within a set period.

But the surprise was the land tax. The large herdsmen, furious at the loss of communal grazing, responded with intimidation and damage to fences. The situation deteriorated to the point where the Royal Secretariat of State and War had to send first a detachment of soldiers and then a squad of cavalry — the carabinieri of the day — who arrested the leader of the herdsmen. The cloudburst of 1846 and the bad harvest of 1847 forced many new landowners to sell their freshly received plots to wealthy landowners for a pittance.

Sergio Atzeni, son of Capoterra

Atzori closed his address with a tribute to the writer Sergio Atzeni, born on 14 October 1952 at 10:15 in the morning in the Sardinian-style house of the Atzori family at Via Zuini 11. "Sergio was proud to have been born in a village like Capoterra rather than in Cagliari, the white city, as he called it, which he did not much love." He died tragically on the island of San Pietro on 6 October 1995, aged just 43.

Third session — The church and community (1700–1950)

Dr Pena Reputu, a public health doctor with "a passion for historical research", took the floor to recount three centuries of parish life reconstructed through the study of the quinque libri — the records prescribed by the Council of Trent recording baptisms, confirmations, marriages, deaths and the census of the faithful. Capoterra holds 24 volumes of these, from 1658 to 1937, preserved in the parish archive.

Over twenty festivals and the origin of families

The quinque libri made it possible to reconstruct the origins of the first settlers. In the 1700s at least twenty religious festivals were celebrated: Santa Rosa, San Sebastiano, San Giovanni Battista, Sant'Antonio Abate, San Michele Arcangelo and many others. The explanation was simple: the settlers came from very different parts of Sardinia and brought with them the patron saints of their native lands.

Sant'Antonio Abate was instituted around 1720 thanks to the testamentary bequest of Fulgenzio Piano, who donated all his possessions to the parish on condition that this feast be celebrated. Many observances survived through the centuries precisely thanks to such testamentary conditions.

The baronial church and the lament of the priests

The condition of the parish church was a recurring theme for generations of rectors. In 1750 the parish priest Don Giacomo Manca wrote to the bishop in terms that revealed all his frustration: the church had been built "by Don Geronimo Torrellas to his own taste" and the baron "retains dominion over it". To reach it one had to ford the Rio Concia, impassable at certain times of year.

The cemetery, adjacent to the church, was small and lacked dedicated burials for clergy and children. A third of Capoterra's ancestors were buried directly inside the church, under the floor, at least three palms deep — with the bishop's recommendations to seal the coffins well "so as not to let the odours transpire".

Rector Lecca: fifty years of struggle

A central figure in religious and civic life was Rector Tomaso Lecca, who governed the parish from 1890 to 1940. He was the first to begin historical research on Capoterra, and a man "of exceptional mettle" who was not afraid to take on anyone — wealthy landowners, administrators and nobility included.

Rector Lecca went to court against the Marquis Manca di Vallermosa, who had obtained a perpetual emphyteusis on three enormous plots in the Sospanto area. Lecca won the case but ultimately had to yield to the Bank of Italy which had put the land up for auction: "I cannot fight against the pluton of gold".

Under his guidance numerous religious associations were founded — for prayer, for Sant'Anna, Santa Barbara, Santa Lucia, the Madonna del Carmine, Sant'Antonio, the Luigini. But when the bishop asked him whether the faithful attended services, Lecca answered honestly: "Half the common people break the Easter observance, yes, but mainly the rich, the gentry, the civil servants and the magistrates."

The ceremony of remembrance (1910)

On 20 November 1910 Rector Lecca organised a solemn ceremony to transfer the bones from the old cemetery (abandoned since 1858) to the new ossuary. In his address the rector listed the surnames of the ancestors — Baio, Melis, Palpada, Piciocchi — and expressed the hope of one day publishing a book on the history of the village: "I cannot publish it, but God will find a way."

The parish church of 1858 and its problems

The new church, designed by engineer Francesco Imeroni, was built between 1855 and 1858 with a loan of 20,000 lire from the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti — an enormous sum for a community of 824 people. During construction part of the nave collapsed. The flood of 1898 caused severe damage to the parish house and the church itself. In 1910 a pastor described it in a pastoral letter as "built without conscience": it had been designed for a thousand souls, but the village already had 1,800 and by the 1930s would have 3,500.

The Zarpata donation and the Donne di Carità

In 1944 Zarpata donated to the parish the building land where the ruins of the old church, the baronial house and the cemetery stood, for the construction of a parish nursery school for the education of children.

Under Don Olla, Domocci's successor, the Donne di Carità was founded: fifty volunteers who assisted at least forty needy families with elderly, sick and lonely people. "They personally went to bring milk, food, and attended to the sick in every way."

Fourth session — Development and heritage at risk

The students' research

Before the final address, moderator Curusi gave the floor to the pupils of class 3I of the middle school, guided by teacher Simone Tapao and teacher Massimo Onis. For months they had interviewed the village's elderly and consulted documents in the State, municipal and school archives, producing a book on daily life in Capoterra. Curusi was impressed: "This is not the usual thing done by young people just to say they've done it — it's something serious, done really well."

Criminal records: violence in 19th-century Capoterra

Dr Vesina, a recent history graduate, presented the results of her thesis on crime in Capoterra between 1810 and 1835, based on the proceedings of the Royal Audiencias. In a village of fewer than 650 souls, cases of violence were proportionally numerous, a sign of deep economic crisis and social imbalance.

The most detailed case was the murder of 1813 in the Efistanas neighbourhood. A woman was shot in her home in the presence of her children. She survived four days, allowing the justices to question her. The victim stated: "I am certain that the shot was fired by Girolamo Pinna." The motive was jealousy over a Cagliari fisherman. Almost all the cases remained unsolved for lack of scientific evidence.

The destruction of the church of Santa Maria Maddalena

The most dramatic intervention was Mauro Dadea's account of the fate of the medieval church of Santa Maria Maddalena. In 1998, construction work on the Residenza del Sole had uncovered finds from the Punic, Roman, proto-Byzantine and medieval periods. Dadea went to the site to document the finds, but the area was guarded by armed watchmen with packs of dogs.

Two years later, the church had been razed to the ground. The stones — thresholds, lintels, sandstone blocks — had been used as foundation material for the villas. Dadea had sent two registered letters to the Soprintendenza, one in 1998 and one in 2000, without receiving a reply.

The final appeal

Mayor Marongiu had opened the conference by recalling the transformation of the landscape: in 1655 the territory must have been rich in forests of oaks and holm oaks, with deer, boar and roe deer. Of the original landscape only fragments remained — the Scardaglia wood, the Inghino pass. The 1969 building plan had turned agricultural estates into building zones under speculative pressure from Cagliari. The conference closed with a proposal to organise a public debate on what the last fifty years of development had meant.

""Thank you all, good evening, and best wishes to Capoterra.""

I contenuti delle sezioni Storia, Monumenti, Tradizioni e Territorio sono stati arricchiti con le informazioni emerse dal convegno.

Source: transcript of the conference "Capoterra 1655-2005 — 350 years of a new history", Casa Melis, Capoterra, December 2005. Speakers: Maria Grazia Melis, Mauro Dadea, Emanuele Atzori, Pena Reputu, Dr Vesina. Moderator: Claudio Curusi. Institutional contributions: Mayor Giorgio Marongiu, Councillor Enrico Congedo.