Carlo Felice and the arrival of prosperity after years of crisis

When the Peace of Utrecht assigned Sardinia to Austrians (1713), the aristocracy of Sassari tried to keep privileges and the honors received during the Spanish domination. But in the 1720 Vittorio Amedeo II, duke of Savoy and king of Sicily, assumed also the title of king of Sardinia: the impact between the Sassarese reality and the Piedmontese severity was not really good.

Ten years later, Vittorio Amedeo II abdicated in favor of Carlo Emanuele III: his long reign (from 1730 to 1773) revitalized a city which had been destroyed by several years of misgovernment, violence and economic crisis. Unfortunately, the arrival of Vittorio Amedeo III involved a reorganization of the governmental and of the peripheral offices, with the nomination of new civil employees, who created chaos again in Sassari, up to the point that in 1780 the population rose up and the governor's palace was assaulted during the riots. At the end, on the order of the king, he was dismissed of his role.

Even worse was the period between 1794 and 1796, when a group of noblemen of Sassari tried for the umpteenth time, without succeeding, to obtain the independence from Cagliari. The situation remarkably improved (in Sassari as in the rest of Sardinia) under the guide of Carlo Felice, during the decade between 1821 and 1831. Subsequently, the economy improved substantially thanks to the amelioration of the communication by sea (with the steamboats that connected Torres Port to Genoa) and overland ( with the diligences from Sassari to Cagliari and return, but also with the road construction-works dedicated to Carlo Felice, to-day replaced in many tracts by the State Street 131).

In that period started also the urban expansion, outside the walls, of which to-day only few parts remain. In 1872, instead, the train connections began on Sassari-Porto Torres line.