Chap. XXXIV
Alghero—Notice of.—The Cathedral of Sassari.—University.—Museum.—A Student’s private Cabinet.—Excursion to a Nuraghe—Description of.—Remarks on the Origin and Design of these Structures.
Sassari is about equidistant from Alghero and Porto-Torres. Of these two ports Alghero is far the best, but all the commerce of Sassari passes through Porto-Torres, by the Strada Reale. The ancient rivalry between the two cities engendered a hatred which continues to the present day, insomuch that the Sassarese have resisted all efforts to make a good road from Alghero, to enable it to become their port of trade. These feuds arose in the age when Alghero was the chief seat of the Arragonese power in the island, enjoyed great exclusive privileges, and was peopled by Catalonian settlers. It is still Spanish in the character of the inhabitants, their customs, and buildings. Surrounded by a fertile and well-cultivated country, abounding in orange and olive groves, vineyards, and fields of corn and flax, Alghero is a city of some seven thousand inhabitants, many of them in affluent circumstances. It is a fortified place, with a richly ornamented cathedral, and thirteen other churches.
Sassari also boasts a spacious cathedral, with a very elaborate façade, a work of the 17th century. It contains also twenty churches, including those that are conventual. If the religious state of the community were to be estimated by the number of those devoted to the service of the church, the Sassarese ought to be models of piety; for Mr. Tyndale calculates the number of priests and monks in 1840 as giving a total of 769 clerical persons, about one for every thirty-two individuals of the community. Their numbers have been diminished by the suppression of some of the convents, but, even at the time of our visit, his remark, that one cannot walk fifty yards in the street without meeting an ecclesiastic, was confirmed by our own observation.
The object which the Sassarese are most proud to exhibit to strangers, is the fountain of Rosello, outside the north-east or Macella gate. At the angles are large figures of the four seasons, at the feet of which the stream issues forth, as well as from eight lions’ mouths in the sides of the building. The whole is of white marble, and though open to criticism as an architectural design, the utility of a fountain, which has twelve mouths constantly pouring forth pure water, in such a climate, cannot be overrated.
The University of Sassari, founded by Philip IV. in 1634, is established in the spacious college formerly belonging to the Jesuits. It numbers about 200 students. The library contains a scanty collection of books, mostly ecclesiastical works. The museum exhibits some few articles of interest, relics of the Phœnician colonisation and Roman occupation of the island, mixed up in the greatest confusion, as in a broker’s shop, with meagre specimens of mineralogy and conchology; and cannot for a moment be compared with the museum of Cagliari, rich in valuable remains of antiquity, and admirably arranged. It will be noticed in its proper place.
We were much more interested in being allowed to examine a small private collection belonging to a young Sassarese, whose acquaintance it was our good fortune to make, and of whose talents, intelligence, and courtesy I retain a most pleasing impression. The pursuits of the young men of the higher classes in Sassari, are described as entirely frivolous, and the bent of the bourgeoisie as eminently sordid. It was, therefore, with an agreeable surprise, that we found ourselves in a studio embellished with the portraits of such characters as Dante, Ariosto, and Sir Isaac Newton; and where mathematical instruments, scattered about, and a cabinet containing some of the best French, English, German, and Italian authors, gave a pleasing idea of the tastes of the owner. With imperfect aid he had made himself sufficiently proficient in foreign languages to be able to read them; and it appeared that his severer studies were relieved by accomplishments displaying considerable talent, such as painting, and taking impressions from the antique in electrotype. He was good enough to offer me some of his casts, with a few coins from his museum of antiquities; two engravings from which, illustrating the Punic and Saracenic periods of the history of Sardinia, will appear in future pages, together with one copied from a unique coin of the Roman age, preserved in the Royal Museum at Cagliari.
One seldom finds such talents and accomplishments accompanied by the modesty with which our young student spoke of his pursuits. Nor was he a mere recluse, though his health appeared feeble; for he entered with zest into conversation on the various topics of European interest suggested by a visit from foreigners, while he did not hesitate to expose, with patriotic zeal, the follies and abuses which opposed the march of civilisation in his native country. Such characters are rare. We had unexpectedly stumbled on a delicate flower, nurtured on an ungrateful soil, and destined to shed its sweetness in an atmosphere where, I fear, it is little appreciated. I may be excused, then, for devoting a page to the adventure, and allowed to inscribe on that page, a name of which I have so agreeable a recollection—that of Carlo Rugiu.
Our new friend was kind enough to be our conductor in a walk to a Nuraghe, standing about three miles from Sassari, and in good preservation. We had already seen many of these very ancient structures scattered over all parts of the country; more or less ruinous, they are said to number 3000 at the present day, and many others have been destroyed.
Whether seen on the plains or on the mountains, the Nuraghe are generally built on the summits of hillocks, or on artificial mounds, commanding the country. Some are partially inclosed at a slight distance by a low wall of similar construction with the building. Their external appearance is that of a truncated cone from thirty to sixty feet in height, and from 100 to 300 in circumference at the base. The walls are composed of rough masses of the stones peculiar to the locality, each from two to six cubic feet, built in regular horizontal layers, in somewhat of the Cyclopean style, and gradually diminishing in size to the summit. Most commonly they betray no marks of the chisel, but in many instances the stones appear to have been rudely worked by the hammer, though not exactly squared.
The interior is almost invariably divided into two domed chambers, one above the other; the lowest averaging from fifteen to twenty feet in diameter, and from twenty to twenty-five feet in height. Access to the upper chamber is gained by a spiral ramp, or rude steps, between the internal and external walls. These are continued to the summit of the tower, which is generally supposed to have formed a platform; but scarcely any of the Nuraghe now present a perfect apex. On the ground floor, there are generally from two to four cells worked in the solid masonry of the base of the cone.
Independently of the interest attached to the object of our search, the fertile plains surrounding Sassari formed a sufficient attraction for a long walk. Plantations of olives, of vines, oranges, and other fruit-trees, succeeded each other in rich profusion; the olive trees being especially productive, and the oil, exported from Sassari in large quantities, being of the first quality. The environs, far and wide, are laid out in these plantations, and in gardens highly cultivated, interspersed with villas and pleasure-grounds. Tobacco is largely cultivated, and the vegetables are excellent. A cauliflower served up at dinner was of enormous size, nor can I forget the baskets of delicious figs which, at this late period of the year, were brought by the market-women to the door of our hotel.
The Nuraghe to which our steps were directed proved to be a very picturesque object, rising out of a thicket of shrubs, with tufts growing in the crevices of the tower, which on one side was dilapidated. The other, composed of huge boulders, laid horizontally with much precision, considering the rude materials, still preserved its conical form, rising to the height of twenty or twenty-five feet. The entrance was so low that we were obliged to stoop almost to our knees in passing through it. A lintel, consisting of a single stone, some two tons’ weight, was supported by the protruding jambs. No light being admitted to the chamber, but by a low passage through the double walls, it was gloomy enough.
In this instance, the interior formed a single dome or cone about twenty-five feet high, well-proportioned, and diminishing till a single massive stone formed the apex. The chamber was fifteen feet in diameter, and had four recesses or cells worked in the solid masonry, about five feet high, three deep, and nearly the same in breadth.
The small platform on the summit of the cone, to which we ascended by the ramp in the interior of the wall and some rugged steps, commanded a rich view of the plain of Sassari, appearing from the top one dense thicket of olive and fruit trees spreading for miles round the city. Out of these groves rise the towers and domes of Sassari, the enceinte of its grey battlemented walls, and the lofty masses of its white houses. The view over the plain to the west is bounded by the Mediterranean, intersected by the bold outlines of the island of Asmara. After feasting our eyes on perhaps the most charming tableau the island affords, decked with nature’s choicest gifts, and exhibiting an industry unusual among the modern Sardes, we sat down at the foot of the hillock, while my friend was completing his sketches of the Nuraghe, and our thoughts were naturally drawn to these relics of a primitive age. “What was their origin—their history—what were the purposes for which they were designed?”
It needed only that we should lift our eyes to the rude but shapely cone before us,—massive in its materials and fabric, and yet constructed with some degree of mechanical skill,—to come to the conclusion that the Nuraghe are works of a very early period, just when rude labour had begun to be directed by some rules of geometrical art. But, in examining the details, we find little or nothing to assist us in forming any clear idea of the period at which they were erected, or the purpose for which they were designed. There are not the slightest vestiges of ornament, any rude sculpture, any inscriptions. Of an antiquity probably anterior to all written records, history not only throws no certain light on their origin, but, till modern times, was silent as to their existence. Successive races, and powers, and dynasties have flourished in the island, and passed away, scarcely any of them without leaving some relics, some medals of history, some impress on the manners and character of the people still to be traced. The mouldering cones which arrest the traveller’s attention, scattered, as we have observed, in great numbers throughout the island, enduring in their simple and massive structure, have thrown their shade over Phœnicians and Greeks, Romans and Carthaginians, Saracens, Pisans, Genoese, and Spaniards, and still survive the wreck of time and so many other early buildings,—the remains of a people of whose existence they are the only record, and, except monoliths, the oldest of, at least, European monuments.
In the absence of any positive evidence regarding the origin and design of the Sardinian Nuraghe76, there has been abundance of conjecture and speculation on the subject. On the present occasion, I had the advantage of discussing it with our intelligent Sassarese student, I have also heard the remarks of one of the most distinguished Sarde antiquarians, and having since consulted the works of La Marmora and other writers, whose extensive researches and personal investigations entitle their opinions to much respect, I shall endeavour to lay the result, unsatisfactory as it proves, before the reader, in the shortest compass to which so wide an inquiry can be reduced.
The world has been searched for styles of building corresponding with that of the Sarde Nuraghe; without success. Neither in Etruscan, Pelasgic, or any other European architecture are any such models to be found, nor do Indian, Assyrian, or Egyptian remains exhibit any identity with them. They have been supposed, among other theories, to have some affinity with the Round Towers of Ireland; but after a careful examination of some of those almost equally mysterious structures, and considerable research among the authorities for their antiquity and uses, I have failed to discover anything in common between them and the Nuraghe. If my memory be correct, Mr. Petrie, the highest authority on the subject of the Round Towers, though he had not seen the Nuraghe, incidentally expresses the same opinion. The only existing buildings exhibiting a cognate character with those of Sardinia, are certain conical towers found in the Balearic islands, which were also colonised by the Phœnicians. They are called talayots, a diminutive, it is said, of atalaya, meaning the “Giants’ Burrow;” and if the plate annexed to Father Bresciani’s work be a correct representation, they would appear to be identical with the Nuraghe in the exterior, except that the ramp leading to the summit is worked in the outward face of the wall. We find, also, from La Marmora’s description of the talayots examined by him, that the character of the cells is different, the style of masonry more cyclopean, and that many of them are surrounded with circles of stones and supposed altars, scarcely ever met with in Sardinia. The resemblance, however, is striking, as connected with the facts of the contiguity of Minorca, and the colonisation of both the islands by the Phœnicians.
Opinions as to the purposes for which the Nuraghe were erected are as various as those regarding their origin. From their great number, scattered over the country, they are supposed by some to have been the habitations of the most ancient shepherds; and the words of Micah—“the tower of the flocks,”77 and other similar passages, are referred to as supporting this view. But it is hardly necessary to point out that the inconveniences of the structure, from its low entrance and dark interior, to say nothing of the waste of labour in heaping up such vast structures for shepherds’ huts, will not admit of the idea being entertained. With somewhat more reason, but still with little probability, they have been represented as watch-towers, strongholds, and places of refuge; a theory to which their position, their numbers, and their structure are all opposed. Another hypothesis treats the Nuraghe as monuments commemorating heroes or great national events, whether in peace or war; forgetting, as Father Bresciani suggests, the centuries that must have elapsed while the mountains, and hills, and plains of Sardinia were being successively crowned with monuments of this description.
Discarding such conjectural theories, the best-informed travellers and writers are agreed in considering the Nuraghe as being designed either for religious edifices or tombs for the dead. La Marmora confesses his inability to pronounce decidedly between the two opinions, but inclines to the opinion that they may have been intended for both purposes. Father Bresciani, the latest writer on Sardinian antiquities, after a personal examination of the Nuraghe and much general research, though he does not venture a decided opinion, is disposed to agree with La Marmora. In confirmation of the idea that the most ancient monuments were at once tombs and altars, he quotes a Spanish writer78 on the antiquities of Mexico, referring also to Lord Kingsborough’s splendid work. So general an assumption is hardly warranted either by historical testimony or existing relics of antiquity. If such were the primitive custom, it did not prevail among the Greeks and Romans, and it is in the rites and practices of the Christian Church that we find its revival.
However this may be, the theory not only of the twofold design or use of the Nuraghe, but of either of them, is confessedly quite conjectural: it rests upon a narrow basis of facts. Though a great number of the Nuraghe have been carefully ransacked, in very few instances only have human bones been discovered, but neither urns, arms, nor ornaments usually inhumed with the dead; nor are many of them so constructed as to permit the supposition that they were designed for sepulchral purposes. Occasionally, also, some of the miniature idols, such as are preserved in the museum at Cagliari, have been found buried in Nuraghe, or their precincts. But this is not general; and there are neither altars nor any other indications in the structure of the buildings to indicate their appropriation to religious uses, except their pyramidal or conical form, which they share in common with most buildings of the earliest age. So far as these were designed for idolatrous uses—as many of them doubtless were—the argument from analogy may apply to the Nuraghe, but it can be carried no further.
Whatever were the purposes of the Nuraghe, almost all writers on Sardinia consider these ancient structures of Eastern origin. Father Bresciani attributes them to Canaanitish or Phœnician colonies, which migrated to the west in early times; and he takes great pains, but, I consider, without much success, to establish their identity, or, at least, their analogy, with the religious or sepulchral erections,—the altars, and “high places,” and tombs,—of which notices are found in the Old Testament. No doubt exists that extensive migrations, favoured by the enterprise of the earliest maritime people of whom we have any record, took place, perhaps both before and after the age of Moses, from the shores of Syria to the islands and shores of the West of Europe. There is reason to think that the island of Sardinia, if not the first seat, was, from its peculiar situation, the very centre, of a colonisation, embracing in its ramifications the coasts of Africa and Spain, with Malta, Sicily, and the Balearic islands. It appears singular that Corsica, the sister island to Sardinia, should not have shared in this movement of settlers from the East; perhaps from its lying out of the direct current, while, in its onward course, the wave flowing through the Straits of Hercules bore forward on the ocean the “merchants of many isles,” for commerce if not for settlement, as far as the Cassiterides, our own Scilly Isles.
Though there is little historical evidence of the Phœnician colonisation of Sardinia, and even that of the early Greek settlements in the island is obscure and conflicting, we have abundant traces of the former, more imperishable than written records, still lingering in the manners and customs of the modern Sardes, and in the great number of those extraordinary antiquities known as the Sarde idols. The greater part of these, as Mr. Tyndale undertakes to show, were symbols of Canaanitish worship, the miniature representations of the gods adored by the Syrian nations, especially of Moloch, Baal, Astarte or Astaroth, Adonis or Tammuz, the very objects of that idolatry so frequently and emphatically denounced in the Old Testament, to which we have already referred. Mr. Tyndale, however, justly observes, that “so distinct and peculiar is the character of these relics, that their counterparts are no more to be met with out of Sardinia than the Nuraghe themselves.” From this circumstance, in conjunction with the fact of the images being often found in and near those buildings, he infers that they may have been, directly or indirectly, connected with each other, in either a religious, sepulchral, or united character.
The inquiry would be incomplete unless it were extended to other Sarde remains, of equal or greater antiquity, for the purpose of discovering whether they have any affinity with, or can throw any light on, the mysterious origin of the Nuraghe. We propose devoting another chapter to this investigation.