Costa Smeralda

The history

Greek mythology attributes the birth of Olbia, the first permanent human settlement on the east coast of the Gallura, to the son of Hercules. Travelling around the island you discover a great number of sayings that are tied to Greek legends and, even if these are purely fruit of human intellect, they are based on extremely real foundations.

The Sardinia of the Neolithic Age (6000-2700 B.C.) was one of the Mediterranean centres of the extraction of obsidian, present in great quantities on Monte Arci (Oristano); because of this there began intense trade even with the Greek islands and with many other Mediterranean centres.

From the deposits in the open air of Oristano, the vitreous, volcanic rock was diverted towards the obsidian industries which were found in several areas of the island, amongst which the Gulf of Cagliari, that of Asinara and in the Arzachena region – Olbia.

The Nuragic civilization (1800-238 B.C.) also settled in this piece of Gallurese coast, characterized by vast plains, natural ports and impassable granite headlands on which to build buildings to serve as look-out posts, as worship or as funerary places, such as the mighty bastion of Cabu Abbas and the sacred well of Sa Testa near Olbia, or the majestic funerary buildings of Arzachena: Li Lolghi and Coddu Ecciu.

From the Punic Age to the splendour of the Empire

In the general history of Sardinia, the Nuragic people continue to reign undisputed on the island until the arrival of the Punic people, which came about around the 6th century B.C. A peaceful occupation of the coasts had been effected previously by the Phoenicians, probable founders of the first urban nucleus in the same site in which is found the current town of Olbia, the only one in the north-west area of the island.

The documented birth of the place is dated between the 4th and 3rd centuries B.C.; to this period is dated back the granite of S’Imbalconadu (on display at the Museo Sanna in Sassari) in which appears the symbol of the Punic deity, Tanit, Goddess of fertility. The few remains of this first human settlement rest currently in the parish of San Paolo, near the Corso Umberto I°. In 238 B.C. the Romans got rid of the Carthaginian Empire and succeeded them in the rule of the island.

At this point the ancient centre was eaten up by the new imperial structures (see guide Oristano: Archaeology) and Olbia experienced an expansion unique in its history, at least up until the first decades of the last century. The town was ringed with a double wall which circled the current centro storico and the Porto Romano, until arriving at the port of today.

The extreme closeness of the Empire’s capital to Olbia, which was then renamed Terranova, favoured noticeably its development, followed immediately by the construction of a road linking it to all the major island centres. The town became the cross-road for trade between the island and the peninsular, soon coming to be inhabited by important, aristocratic imperial families. The noblity equipped a series of farms for the cultivation and exportation of cereals.

This activity gained for the island the title of granario dell’impero, granary of the Empire, although much of the advantage lay in the exploitation of the labourers. Towards the middle of 400 B.C. Rome was attacked and pillaged by the Vandals and Sardinia suffered the same, though the people went no further than to establish themselves along the coast, occupying centres such as Terranova, causing the population to flee inland where was founded the centre of Pausania (or Phausania).

The social status of the people who lived in Olbia during the Roman times can be deduced by the presence in the town of such figures as Atte, the concubine of Emperor Nero. The Patricia was the owner of several villas and a factory.

The Byzantine crisis and the Judiciary solution

After not even a century of domination the Vandals were subdued by the Byzantine Empire, Oriental remainder of the immense Roman Empire, that for nearly five hundred years established an unjust rule over the island during which grounds for the birth of the Regni Giudicali, Judiciary Realms, were founded.

The giudicati, judiciary regions, came to be due to the necessity to decentralize the power of the Judex which resided in Cagliari, unable to contain the external attacks of the Arabs and those internal of the Barbarians who, more than a thousand years from the fall of the Nuragic kingdom, still made heard their bitterness towards foreigners with violent assaults on their villages. In the 5th century were thus founded the four Judicaries of Torres, Caralis, Arborea and Gallura.

The first capital of the Realm of Gallura was probably Luogosanto or some inland town that escaped the Muslim invasions. Although the Judiciary Period, is indicated as a great period of independence for the island, the Sardinians had to submit to the patronage of the Maritime Republics of Genoa and Pisa as well as the continual intervention of the papacy.

The Realm of Gallura always came out in favour of the Pisan and, in the 8th century, passed under the Visconti family, with whom it began its expansion. In that period Olbia came back into the limelight and was rebaptized Terranova Pausania, a name which is used almost up to the present day.

The town, already encircled by thick walls, was provided with a castle and rose to the position of capital of the realm. In the early 1200s Gallura and the realms of Torres and Arborea went to war against the pro-ligure Judicary of Calari (Cagliari). This alliance allowed them to take on the administrative divisions of Ogliastra, Sarrabus, Quirra and Colostra, becoming master of the eastern coast of the island.

The successive generation did not manage to take advantage of the situation due to the decadence of the ruling family and this allowed Pisa to conquer the Realm of Gallura, putting an end to the new Kingdom. Meanwhile, Terranova, like Sassari, had risen as a free municipality, accepting however the rule of a Pisan Mayor. Contrary to the fate of the kingdom, the town saw the reflourishing of its trade and harbour activity.

The experts are divided on whether Pausania and Terranova were the same town. Although much evidence leans in favour of there being two separate centres, it cannot be discounted that the towns could have risen a small distance apart, enough to arrive gradually at a fusion or the transplanting of the population of one centre to the other.

The Aragonese rule

The entrance of the Aragonese onto the island was permitted by the Judicary of Arborea who saw the alliance with the Spanish as a way of ridding itself of the unpleasant Pisan presence. Legally, however, the Iberians had such power invested by the Pope Bonifacio VIII who established the Kingdom of Sardinia and gave it to the Spanish, with no thought whatsoever for the existing rulers.

The island was dismembered in numerous feuds with rulers often resident in Spain and interested only in exacting the tributes, in money or in kind, without ever taking into account the wars, the famines and the plagues that brought the population to its knees. It was the darkest period in the entire history of Sardinia, worse even than the notorious rule of the Vandals; not even the royal towns such as Oristano, Bosa, Cagliari and Iglesias were able to do anything against the disastrous economic crisis.

Terranova was depopulated and its inhabitants dispersed into the barren countryside, forming aggregations of “stazzi”, the typical rural dwellings of Gallura. The grave social situation in these years was resolved in the great period of the Sardinian bandits (see guide: Santa Teresa of Gallura) with a population that created a society within society.

The usage of resolving internal controversy by turning to the wise men of the village still went on in the beginning of the 20th century; whilst Albert Einstein explained to the world the theory of relativity, the Sardinians dealt with disputes using a method as old as the invention of the wheel. Such was the self-sufficiency of the rural nuclei and their diversity from the appointed governments, that the phenomenon came to be known as the società degli stazzi (stazzi society).

The revival: from the Savoias to the Aga Khan

The ruinous economic and social situation dragged on until the arrival of the Savoias, with whom, although in the first hundred years of mandate hardly anything was done, the grounds were founded for the end of the feudal system and the birth of a united Italy.

In the wake of a series of important social reforms, Terranova Pausania resumed its development thanks to important interventions such as the resumption of marine transportation, the building of railways and the carriage road that linked it to Carlo Felice, still now the most important road on the island. The contemporary development of the centres La Maddelena and Palau also encouraged the economic growth of Arzachena, mid-way between the two towns and Olbia.

A notable development came about thanks to the cork industry and stock-raising, with an elevated growth in the dairy sector; fishing was also brought back into use but the waters of Terranova became, and are still, famous for mussel cultivation and quickly came to occupy one of the principal positions in the exportation business.

In 1939 the town regained definitively the ancient name of Olbia. In 1960 the prince Karim Aga Khan discovered the spectacular coast of Arzachena, it is said by chance, whilst he flew overhead by plane. Within a year 5000 hectares of land were already in the hands of the prince, who founded a syndicate for the transformation of the territory in an exclusive centre to receive the cream of international high society.

Baja Sardinia The syndicate and the coastline took on the name of Costa Smeralda, Emerald Coast; its boundaries well determined by two enormous granite boulders on either side of the road which, as well as the name, carry the symbol of a stylised emerald. The activities related to tourism allowed for yet further growth of Arzachena, municipality in which was created the little state village.

The news of all the world diffused images of our waters, as well as those of the VIPs busy living their dolce vita by the sea; if the centres of Rimini and Riccione were the capitals of young tourists, the nobility, rich and famous knew only one name for the Mediterranean holiday: the Costa Smeralda.

The competition to this far-sighted project was not long in arriving; between 1965 and 1967 the Donà delle Rose brothers were the inventors and founders of Porto Rotondo. The idea was not devised to be an imitation of the project of the Aga Khan, though most definitely the success of this initiative gave a certain verve to the aims of the rich Genoans; the interest in the beautiful, circular bay derived from the frequenting of the place by the young, during fishing trips on the family yacht.

Porto Cervo, Porto Rotondo, the Costa Smeralda airport all led to the climax of the turistic expansion of the piece of coastline between Arzachena and Olbia, development that now involves the entire coast of Gallura from Santa Teresa to San Teodoro. In 2003 Gallura went back to being an autonomous province, even if the separation from the province of Sassari is still in procedure (2004).

The land of the stazzi is currently the leader in the island’s tourism, based on a careful urban organization in order to take best advantage of the most beautiful spots along the coast. However this “prudent” development was stealing ever bigger pieces space from nature, the maker of these wonderful places; in the nineties the Aga Khan presented the second part of his project: the Master Plan.

The world, however, had changed; there no longer existed the haste to exploit all natural resources, but to protect them. In Sardinia plans were going ahead for the National Parks of Asinara and neighbouring archipelago of La Maddalena in the North and the Golfo di Orosei in the South. The Master Plan was blocked and the prince ducked out of the Costa Smeralda.