The Ducal Palace and the Rosello fountain, the symbols of Sassari

The Ducal Palace hosts the town Council of Sassari from the beginning of the 1900's. Located in the old-town center, only a few dozens meters away from the cathedral of San Nicola, shows at the entrance the coats of arms that testify the long permanence in the town of the Spanish. It takes the name from the title of nobility of Antonio Manca, duke of the Asinara, that ordered its construction between the end of the XVIII century and the beginning of the XIX. L’ex Dance Hall hosts the board meeting. In front of the Ducal palace entrance there is the ancient building where between the eighteenth and the nineteenth century the carriages were parked.

The headquarters of the Sassari university (the most ancient in Sardinia) is one of the most beautiful palaces in the city. The building begun in 1559 and was completed in 1565, thanks to the bequest of the wealthy man of Sassari Alessio Fontana, it became an important college managed by the Jesuits and in 1617 by the papal bubble of Filippo III it was transformed into University. Inside the palace it is possible to admire a beautiful seventeenth-century cloister.

The Rosello Fountain is one of the symbol monuments of Sassari, and not only for its artistic nature: for centuries, as from the 1200's, the whole town has quenched its thirst taking the water that flowed out from a source first, and after the construction of the Rosello Fountain, from the mouths of the twelve lions carved in it . It was realized in marble in 1606 by two genoese’s sculptors. In marble are also the symbols of Sassari (a tower) and Aragon, the nineteenth-century statues that represent the Four Seasons and other figures: the equestrian statue representing San Gavino is a copy of the original that has gone missing. Another fountain which supplied with water the city for centuries is the one of the Conce.

The nineteenth-century palaces of Italia square, in Sassari, contribute to make of this view of the center, the so-called “salotto” (drawing-room) of the city, still today a point of reference for many inhabitants of Sassari. It looks over it, among the others, even the nineteenth-century and majestic Palace of the Province, that it is well-worth a visit: very interesting the frescoes of the council chamber. Also interesting the piazza Tola (Tola square), even if the surrounding buildings (some of those of the XVI century) would deserve greater attention from the local administrators. Among the most ancient buildings (1577) we mention the Palace of Usini, so-called because it was the residence of Giacomo Manca, baron of Usini.