There Barbagia is a mountainous region of the Sardinia Oriental.
To know
The landscape of Barbagia is very varied: it ranges from granite rocks to the buttresses of the Ogliastra Gennargentu, including the Rio Pardu valley, from the Cedrino valleys to the pastures of Ollolai, to the mountain pastures of Seui, and then descend to the sea towards BauneiThe holm oak, juniper, yew and downy oak woods are widespread and rich in fauna.
Geographical notes
The Barbagia extends on the flanks of the Gennargentu massif. The region is made up of the Gennargentu andOgliastra, from the Supramonte and from Nuoro up to Bitti. It borders the Gallura, the Baronies, L'Oristano, the Tirso valley and the Sarcidano and covers an area of approximately 1,300 km² with a population of approximately 120,000 inhabitants. The most populous center is Nuoro.
Background
The oldest human settlement in Barbagia, dating back to the upper Paleolithic, was found in the Corbeddu cave in Oliena. The various ones followed in the following millennia facies cultural pre-Nuragic and Nuragic that characterized the whole Sardinian territory.
The Carthaginian colonization did not affect the mountainous areas of central and northern Sardinia, being the Punic people interested only in the domination of the coastal areas, functional to their commercial traffic. The Sardinian tribes of theOgliastra, of Barbagia, of Gallura, of the Goceano, ofAnglona, of the Romangia and of Nurra, who continued to live in the nuragic way, but who barbarized over time as a result of segregation.
Simple relations of coexistence and commerce were established between the native Sardinians and the Punic people.
Even the first phases of Roman domination were extremely opposed by Corsi and Balari of northern Sardinia and, in particular, by the populations who lived in the area from bittese south of Gennargentu, and from Marghine-Goceano to the Gulf of Orosei qualified as "Civitates Barbariae"in the republican age and"Barbaricini"in the late imperial and Vandal age. The toponym Barbagia derives from the Latin which was opposed to the Romania, the rest of Sardinia where the commercial traffic of Rome. Paulis states that the expression civitates Barbariae must be understood in the sense in which it occurs in "literary and epigraphic sources especially for the Celtic area and for Germany", where it indicates "the 'cantons' without urbs, without the organization urban ". The border of Barbaria was therefore the one that divided the territory of urban functions from that which lacked them, from that in which few populations, linked more by tribal than administrative ties, lived distributed in small settlements located in large estates for community use. , supervised and dominated by "some military camps placed in control of the road network, at least in the Republican age and in the first decades of the empire".
The borders of Barbagia were therefore essentially economic and social, not political-military. It was chosen several times as a place of deportation and exile. Tiberius deported you, according to the testimony of Tacitus, coercendis illic latrociniis - and therefore close to mountain areas - 4000 freedmen or children of freedmen devoted to Egyptian or Jewish cults. Probably the vandal king Genseric (428-477) founded a colony of Mauri "which, while on the one hand freed the African provinces from turbid and treacherous elements which were a permanent danger to the internal peace and prosperity of the state, in Sardinia a prop to vandalic sovereignty since the diversity of race, language, religion and customs prevented any understanding with the natives. It is evident that no emperor or king would have exiled anyone to an area not adequately controlled both from a military and political point of view. In short, Barbagia was born before Romania Sardinian, and has never had a political or ideological status.
The historical clans mentioned by the Romans and, probably, all belonging to the Iliensi family were:
- the Iliensi or Iolei in the mountains ranging from Marghine of Bortigali, nuraghe of Aidu Entos (with the border engraving ILI-IVR-IN-NVRAC-SESSAR), up to the peaks of Wing, of Well all (near the Tirso valley where the Roman fort of Lesa was located) and the whole Ogliastra.
- the Nurritanenses or Nurrenses in the territories of Orotelli he was born in nuorese. In the 2nd century AD, they operated in the service of the imperial army (Cohors I - Nurritanenses) in Mauretania Cesariense.
- the Wallpaper in Mount Albo
- the Soxinated in Monte Albo
- the Agree in Monte Albo and in the Remule mountains
- the Cunusitani to Fonni
- the Celsitani in Gennargentu from Arzana to Ulassai
- the Gallilensi in the lower Flumendosa
This is how Diodorus Siculus describes the Ilian populations who, having abandoned the plains and coasts, took refuge inland to escape foreign domination.
The process of "Latinization" was slow and mainly due to the settlement of settlers and the assignment of lands to local populations (in order to make them permanent) in the imperial age, to which the estates defined by boundary stones date back. Also important was the enrollment of local people in the imperial army as mercenaries or classified as cohorts real.
The middle Ages
Just before the fall of the Western Roman Empire, which took place in 476, Sardinia was conquered by the Vandals, a Germanic population who, after having conquered Roman Africa in the 430 years, later built a powerful fleet by annexing the various islands of the Western Mediterranean. The vandal domination of Sardinia lasted until 534, when Justinian I, emperor of the East, managed to reconquer the island for the Eastern Roman Empire.
The most important historical sources on that period are the direct testimonies of Procopius and the 39 letters of Pope Gregory I (590-604). From the Pontiff's letters the existence of two different Sardignias emerges: one Romanized, Christianized and Roman (that of the Provinciales), and an internal one, made up of cantonal aggregates, with idolatrous and pagan populations, the Gens Barbaricina governed by the "dux" Ospitone. Following a constant and tenacious diplomatic action (testified in the aforementioned letters), in the summer of 594 a pact was concluded between the Byzantines and Barbaricini and, among the various agreements, Hospiton accepted the conversion to Christianity of his people. To thoroughly evangelize Corsica and Sardinia, Pope Gregory entrusted the two islands to the Benedictines of the Tuscan islands, who remained there throughout the Middle Ages, although Christianization also took place thanks to the Greek-Byzantine monastic orders: Studiti, Basiliani, etc. The Benedictines built small monasteries, called abbadies, and took care of the construction of churches, streets and the holding of agricultural land.
Barbagia in the Giudicato period (IX-XV century AD) was divided into different curatoria, administered by the four Sardinian judges of Torres, Gallura, Arborea and Cagliari. After the fall of the last surviving judge, that of Arborea, it was definitively incorporated into the Kingdom of Sardinia by the Aragonese.
Territories and tourist destinations
Barbagia: full screen map.- Barbagia di Nuoro
- Barbagia of Ollolai, north of the Gennargentu;
- Mandrolisai, west of the Gennargentu
- Barbagia di Belvì, south of the Gennargentu
- Barbagia di Seùlo, even further south
- Ogliastra, east of the Gennargentu
Urban centers
Other destinations
How to get
By plane
- 1 Olbia Costa Smeralda Airport (IATA: OLB), ☎ 39 0789 563400, fax: 39 0789 563401. L'Olbia-Costa Smeralda airport it is connected with several Italian and European cities from Alitalia with Rome-Fiumicino and Milan-Linate and other scheduled and low cost airlines including Easyjet, Volotea, Smartwings, Transavia, British Airways, Austrian and many others.
- 2 Alghero-Fertilia Airport (IATA: AHO), ☎ 39 079 935011. L'Alghero-Fertilia airport is served by Ryanair with Pisa, Bologna, Milan-Bergamo and some European cities, from Alitalia with Rome-Fiumicino and Milan-Linate and by other airlines serving other national and European destinations.
- 3 Cagliari-Elmas Airport (IATA: CAG), ☎ 39 070 211211, fax: 39 070 241013. L'Cagliari-Elmas airport it is served by Ryanair with Pisa, Bologna, Milan-Bergamo, Rome Ciampino, Treviso, Cuneo, Bologna and some European cities, by Alitalia with Rome-Fiumicino and Milan-Linate and by other airlines serving other national and European destinations.
From the following airports it is possible, thanks to several car rental companies present, to rent a car to reach Barbagia.
By car
- SS 131 d.c.n. Abbasanta-Nuoro-Olbia
- SS 129 Macomer-Nuoro
- SS 128 from Cagliari to central Sardinia
- SS 125 from Cagliari or Olbia to Nuorese and Ogliastra
- SS 198 of Seui and Lanusei
- SS 389 var Nuoro-Lanusei
- Port of Tortolì-Arbatax
- Port of Olbia-Isola Bianca
- Golfo Aranci maritime station
- Port of Cagliari
- Port of Porto Torres
On the train
Barbagia can be reached via the following narrow gauge lines:
By bus
It is possible to travel with the ARST suburban buses.
