| Montevecchio | ||
 | ||
| State | Italy | |
|---|---|---|
| Region | Sardinia | |
| Territory | Monreale | |
| Altitude | 370 m a.s.l. | |
| Inhabitants | 355 (2011) | |
| Prefix tel | 39 070 | |
| POSTAL CODE | 09030, 09031 | |
| Time zone | UTC 1 | |
| Patron | Santa Barbara | |
Position
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Montevecchio is a small village in the Southern Sardinia, in the province of Southern Sardinia.
To know
Structure of the compendium
The mining complex of Montevecchio consists of several mining and processing sites for minerals, an inhabited center, home to the main services and headquarters of the management, and some workers' villages.
The mining activity exploited the Montevecchio vein of the same name: this one, rich in blende and galena, minerals from which zinc and lead are obtained respectively, is about twelve kilometers long. The Ingurtosu mining compendium also insists on the same vein. The Salaponi mine in Gonnosfanadiga was also part of the same compendium.
The inhabited center
The administrative center of the compendium is the small town of Gennas Serapis; better known as "Montevecchio", it is located in one of the highest plateaus in the area. There were the apartments of the managers of the mine and of the highest positions at the service of the companies that followed one another in the management of the mine, several buildings with accommodation for the workers, the management building with an adjoining chapel dedicated to Santa Barbara and other management offices, the most important services, such as the carabinieri barracks, the hospital and schools, a post office, a chemical laboratory, the geological office, cinema and football field, where the local Montevecchio team played.
It is currently inhabited by a few hundred people and is a fraction of the municipality of Guspini, while the houses of Sa Tanca are included in the territory of Arbus. In the period of maximum mining activity, the compendium came to count over three thousand inhabitants.
The yards
East of Gennas Serapis are the construction sites of the east. These are mainly the Piccalinna shipyard and the Sant'Antonio shipyard. In this part of the compendium there were several workers' villages: among them, the most important is undoubtedly the Righi Village, on the road that leads from Gennas to Arbus. Among the various industrial works, the Pozzo Sartori is worthy of note, inaugurated on June 1, 1941, which develops in depth up to 288 meters below sea level.
To the west of the center of Gennas Serapis are the western construction sites: Sanna, Telle and Casargiu; to the west of the Casargiu construction site the Ingurtosu compendium began.
Geographical notes
Montevecchio is located in the municipal areas of Guspini and of Arbus. The inhabited center, also known as Gennas Serapis, is a small fraction of the municipality of Guspini.
History of mining activities in Montevecchio
The mines of Montevecchio were among the most productive in Europe: the mining activities started in antiquity, definitively ceasing in 1991.
Mining in ancient and modern times
The mineral wealth of the Montevecchio area must certainly have been known to the Romans: mining activities from the Roman era have in fact been ascertained through the remains of work tools, such as oil lamps and small buckets for transporting minerals from the wells dug into the rock. In particular, nineteenth-century testimonies affirm the discovery in situ of two Roman lead pumps: both had bronze mouths, and one of the two even wooden mechanisms inside. It seems that one of the two pumps was transported and stored in Paris.
Mining activities in the area also continued during the Middle Ages. There is evidence of mining works throughout the modern era. In 1750 Carl Gustav Mandel, the Swedish entrepreneur who had a foundry built in Villacidro, considered among the earliest examples of correctly definable industrial activity in Sardinia, had shallow holes dug throughout the area. After the death of the latter, the excavation activities continued both during the state management of the Belly, directly desired by the Savoy authorities, and through private individuals who were assigned small excavation concessions. However, these were activities that did not have the productive consistency of the industrial activities that began in the second half of the nineteenth century.
The extraction in the nineteenth century and the Sanna family
The origin of what would later become the mining activity of the Montevecchio mines dates back to the initiative of a priest from Sassari fresh from the seminary, Giovanni Antonio Pischedda. The father of these was a merchant, and when he arrived near Arbus for work, he accidentally learned from local old men about the works carried out between the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century in Montevecchio and Ingurtosu for the extraction of the mineral. The young priest, who also arrived in the Guspinese area because he was more attracted to the care of trade than to that of souls, began around 1842 to carry out the first excavations in search of the mineral. In Marseille, the port to which he had gone in search of partners to create a company with which he could apply for the concession of the territory for the research and subsequent extraction of the mineral, he met Giovanni Antonio Sanna, another emigrant from Sassari of great resourcefulness.
Not without difficulty, he managed to set up a company, the Society for the Cultivation of the Argentiferous Lead Mine known as Montevecchio, from which the Sassarese priest soon left, and to which the management of the three concessions was given on April 28, 1848. simply call Montevecchio I, Montevecchio II and Montevecchio III. These were three square-shaped plots of land, with a side of two kilometers: therefore the Company had control, in 1848, of a slice of territory altogether two kilometers wide and six kilometers long, extending from the slopes of the hills west of Guspini to the east. , up to the territory of Ingurtosu.
The Montevecchio Company initially turned its attention to those parts of the metalliferous vein emerging from the subsoil, in the locality of Gennas Serapis and Casargiu. However, the works on the latter site were soon abandoned, and the work continued exclusively with the easternmost sites, where open galleries were opened. Near the Galleria Angosarda, one of the most oriental, the first permanent laundry of the compendium, called Rio laundry, was built at the beginning of the 1850s. This, powered by the waters of the Rio stream and moved by a steam engine, received and processed the mineral extracted from the nearby tunnels, such as the Anglosarda. In the same period, the first permanent structures were built in the inhabited center of Gennas Serapis, residential units for the use of the managers and main representatives of the Company. In 1865 the mine, with 1100 workers, was the largest in the Kingdom of Italy.
In 1873 the Società delle Miniere di Montevecchio began construction of the Montevecchio Sciria-San Gavino Monreale railway for the transport of the ore; it was finished in 1878 under the direction of the engineer Alberto Castoldi (son-in-law of Giovanni Antonio Sanna for having married his daughter Zelí) and entered service on November 15 of the same year.
The Rio laundry was soon followed by another laundry, located in the western part of the complex, and called the Sanna laundry, in honor of the founder of the Company, later renamed Eleonora d'Arborea, due to internal disagreements between the company's partners in subject of management, and once Sanna passed away, in 1875, once again dedicated to his figure. This laundry was placed in a narrow valley formed by the Rio Montevecchio; criticized both for the unhealthiness of the place, infested by mosquitoes, and for the poor accessibility of the valley, it was equipped with engines and equipment superior to those built in the Rio laundry.
In 1877 the third laundry of the compendium was built, the Principe Tomaso laundry. The name was given in honor of the homonymous prince of the House of Savoy, who visited the construction sites in that year and inaugurated the new structure: he was offered a rich banquet in the Anglosarda Gallery, whose mouth was in front of the new factory. The Gallery, due to the lead-silver concretions of its vault, was probably considered the most suitable place to house a member of the ruling dynasty. In this first phase, the Principe Tomaso laundry consisted of four buildings side by side, inside which was the powerful steam engine and the gravimetric equipment. The project for the construction of a laundry in this area had already been planned for some time: initially it was decided to transfer the Rio laundry, then it was decided to build a new structure. The old Rio laundry was definitively abandoned and partially destroyed in 1897, when the Prince Tomaso underwent structural extensions and renewals in the mechanical equipment.
The same year the construction of the new laundry began, located in the Telle yard and called the Lamarmora laundry. This, smaller than the other two, served the more western construction sites, which in the meantime were being investigated.
Probably a few years earlier, the hospital of Gennas Serapis was built, considered by visitors of the period to be one of the most modern ever built in Sardinia. Among these, the first of which we have testimony is Carlo Corbetta: he already speaks of it from 1877, in his volume Sardegna e Corsica. The hospital was divided, on the upper floor, into four large rooms with nine beds each, systems for air exchange and a retractable rail system to move the beds with the patients, so that when one of these worsened or it was missing, it could be transported to another ward without disturbing the other patients.
A few years later the Management Building was built. In the same area where this was built, Sanna had thought of having a large church built, dedicated to Santa Barbara, patron saint of miners: in reality the building as designed was too large for the needs of the compendium, and after his death it was a large building was built in its place, comprising the management offices, the director's apartment and a large chapel attached. This structure, like most of the older ones in the area, underwent numerous changes over time.
The death of Giovanni Antonio Sanna, which occurred in 1875, gave rise to quarrels between the relatives to administer and divide the company and the large inheritance left. Despite this, Montevecchio continued to be developed by the heirs, with the acquisition of other small mines and overall good results until the 1920s, changing its name to Montevecchio Mines.
After the First World War, the company went into crisis following the adversity caused by the great depression of 1929. In 1933, the situation became unsustainable, also due to the costs due to the construction of the San Gavino Monreale Foundry. Thus, for the large debts, a request was made for an arrangement with creditors: 43 million lire were offered, jointly by Montecatini and Monteponi. The tasks of the two companies were well defined and distinct: the mines at Montecatini, metallurgy at Monteponi. The new company was called Montevecchio an anonymous mining company.
The years of maximum splendor
The maximum splendor of the mine was reached at the turn of the Second World War.
In 1939 the company took the name of Montevecchio SIPZ, an Italian company of lead and zinc, in the same year there was the maximum production of ore.
The arrival of the war saw a general slowdown in activities, despite a visit by Benito Mussolini in 1942. At the same time as the construction of the airfield at Sa Zeppara, some workers from the mine workshops were employed in aircraft maintenance operations. After the armistice of Cassibile in 1943, the extraction remained practically at a standstill and due to the conditions in which the nation was, the chemical workshops and laboratories managed to do anything that could be useful (for example the creation of soaps).
After the war, activities resumed vigorously. The centenary of the mine's birth was also celebrated in 1948. Many works were developed, both in the strictly mining sector and in complementary civil works, such as the dam named after Guido Donegani. In these years there were large productions, so the company came to become the largest Italian producer of lead and zinc. This period lasted until the sixties. In 1962 the company was incorporated by Monteponi to give life to Monteponi and Montevecchio.
The last years
In 1965 the Ingurtosu mine was merged with the company, which the Pertusola had abandoned because it now lacked any resources. In 1966 the merger between Montecatini and Edison led to the termination of the Montecatini management, which was replaced by Montedison, less interested in mining activities.
In 1971 the mine was absorbed by a new body: the Sogersa (state and regional company for the management of Sardinian mineral resources), ie by EGAM and the Sardinian Mining Authority. Production was reduced, the field no longer had many economically exploitable resources and employment continued. In 1976 EGAM was put into liquidation and Sogersa was absorbed by ENI, through SAMIM: it was now expected to close, in fact in 1980 the staff were put into the redundancy fund. In 1984, thanks to regional and state funds, some crops were distributed. In 1986, following the desire of ENI to separate metallurgy from mines, these merged into the SIM - Società Italiana Minere: the situation remained unchanged, with growing concern for the safeguarding of jobs. The protests culminated in the 1991 occupation of the Amsicora well, which lasted 27 days and which, with the agreement of 17 May, will lead to the definitive closure of the Montevecchio mine.
How to orient yourself
Montevecchio: full screen map.How to get
By plane
- 1 Cagliari-Elmas Airport (IATA: CAG) (75 km from Montevecchio), ☎ 39 070 211211, fax: 39 070 241013. L'Cagliari-Elmas airport is served by Ryanair with Milan-Bergamo, Treviso, Cuneo, Bologna, Pisa, Rome-Ciampino and some European cities, from Alitalia with Rome-Fiumicino and Milan-Linate, from Easyjet, Volotea and other airlines that operate national flights and with Europe.
- 2 Alghero-Fertilia Airport (IATA: AHO) (202 km from Montevecchio), ☎ 39 079 935011. L'Alghero-Fertilia airport it is served by Ryanair with Milan-Bergamo, Bologna, Pisa and some European cities, by Alitalia with Rome-Fiumicino and Milan-Linate and by other airlines such as Volotea, Easyjet, etc ... which operate national flights and with Europe .
- 3 Olbia Costa Smeralda Airport (IATA: OLB) (234 km from Montevecchio), ☎ 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.
From the following airports it is possible, thanks to several car rental companies present, to rent a car to reach Montevecchio.
By car
Take the SS 131 Carlo Felice and take the "Sanluri-San Gavino-Guspini" exit and follow the signs for Guspini. Arrived at the entrance of Guspini, follow the signs for Montevecchio in order to arrive at your destination.
From the port of Cagliari or from the ports of Porto Torres, Olbia-Isola Bianca e Golfo Aranci.
By bus
From Guspini the following ARST lines, the 214 (with this it is also possible to arrive directly from Cagliari) and the 208 it is possible to reach Montevecchio.
How to get around
What see
Mines
- 1 Montevecchio mine.
- 2 Piccalinna mine.
- Sant'Antonio mine.
- 3 Mine of Sciria.
- 4 Casargiu mine.
- 5 Sanna mine.
- 6 Telle mine.
- 7 Anglosard gallery.
Museums
- 8 Mineralogical Museum and Sanna Castoldi Collection, ☎ 39 339 6939435, @[email protected].
- 9 Montevecchio Museum Complex, Sant'Antonio Route, ☎ 39 070 973173, 39 338 4592082, 39 389 1643692, @[email protected].
Churches
- 10 Chapel of Santa Barbara.
Events and parties
- Arresojas.
In July and August. International biennial and market exhibition of the Sardinian artisan knife. - 4 Birras, ☎ 39 070 970384, @[email protected]. In July. Festival of Sardinian and world craft beer.
- Honey Festival (At the mines). Penultimate weekend of August. Here Sardinian honey producers exhibit their products, the event attracts many tourists.
In July and August. International biennial and market exhibition of the Sardinian artisan knife.What to do
Shopping
- 1 4 Moors, SP 66, km 5.6, locality Sciria, Levante, ☎ 39 070 7539362, 39 345 3697709, 39 347 4023577, @[email protected]. Brewery.
How to have fun
Where to eat
Average prices
- 1 Gennas Food and Wine Confraternity, Via Vittorio Veneto, ☎ 39 349 8070065. Restaurant.
Where stay
Average prices
- 1 Sa Tanca, Location Sa Tanca, ☎ 39 340 9105265, @[email protected]. Farmhouse.
- 2 The Flowery Mine, Location Sa Tanca, ☎ 39 070 973167, 39 347 1740011, @[email protected]. Check in: 17:00, check-out: 10:30.
Safety
Useful numbers
- 5 Carabinieri, Via Gramsci, ☎ 39 070 973122.
How to keep in touch
Around
Other projects
Wikipedia contains an entry concerning Montevecchio
Commons contains images or other files on Montevecchio
