In Sanluri the only intact castle in Sardinia

Sanluri is one of the most important town in the new province of Medio Campidano (of which it could become the capital), which, in 2005, has obtained the political-administrative autonomy from the public corporation hosted in Cagliari. It owes its notoriety especially to the medieval castle, which was built by the Pisans and refurbished in the current shape by Pietro IV from Aragona in 1355: the Spanish king considered Sanluri “Puerta principal del Regnum Sardinuae et Corsicae” (main door of the kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica).

Some structures of the castle and parts of walls were completed in less than a month: men and women worked without pause, day and night, while 300 horse soldiers assured the patrol. It became the post to defend the Capo del Càller (Cagliari and the surrounding territory) from the attacks of the Giudicato d' Arborea, which was ruled by Mariano IV, who occupied the castle in 1365 (see the Battle of Sanluri).

Only afterwards he decided to extend the borders and to absorb the existing village and, in 1436, it became the feudal seat of the Viscount of Sanluri. With the abolition of the fees, wanted by the king Carlo Alberto of Savoia (1839), the castle knew a period of total dereliction, but in 1927 the count Nino Saint Villa gave an important impulse to the rebirth of the fortress by transformed it in the Museo Risorgimentale “Duca d’Aosta” , that attracts thousands of visitors every year.

After the father’s death (1960) the sons Emanuele Filiberto and Alberto Villa continued the relaunching process creating the Museum of the Ceroplastiche and other very interesting collections from the historical and cultural point of view. The Sanluri Caste is the only intact castle in Sardinia: in the time of the Giudicati the castles scattered all over the island were 88.