When Argentiera fascinated and deceived Honorč de Balzac
It is right to believe that the silver field which gave the name to the site of Argentiera (province of Sassari) and to this part of Nurra, attracted peoples from faraway lands back in the antiquity. Only during the age of “Giudicati” (the period which goes from the XI to the XV century) appeared the first written evidence of the mine exploiting: in 1131, the Giudicato of Torres, according to the wishes of Gonario II, gave the mining concession to the religious institution of Santa Maria di Pisa. During the drives in the modern age, important evidences of that period and of the following centuries have been found.
The mine of Argentiera, which forms a quadrilateral with the cities of Alghero, Porto Torres and Sassari (falls within the territorial and administrative competence of Sassari), appeared with honor on the international public eye in 1838, when the famous French novelist Honorè de Balzac was attracted by the possibility of making a big and quick profit from the field exploiting.: it would have been the chance to put his finances straight. Unfortunately, after a long and exhausting journey, the chemistry laboratories of Cagliari ascertained that the presence of silver, in the drosses collected in the galleries still working up to that moment, was completely insignificant.
Only after 30 years new pits were dug to distinguish different seams. Afterwards zinc and lead were extracted until the closing in the Sixties.
Although the complete dereliction, and the consequent damage a good part of the structures (some of those instead, have been converted in a holiday-village, as the area looks onto a wonderful stretch of coast), it is still possible to contemplate the beauty of the laveria that was largely built in fine wood during the twenties, in place of the original one that way not used any longer.
