Nuorese Cultural District
From the age of dinosaurs to our own time, interesting things are happening in the Distretto Culturale del Nuorese every day of the year. Discover the history of the Nuoro region exploring our interactive timeline.
Scroll up or down to move along the timeline and click on the links to find out more.
The Alierasaurus is grazing across Sardinia.
Erection and decoration of the Boeli Stela (in Sardinian, Sa Perda Pintà), an imposing pre-Nuraghic menhir, accidentally discovered in 1997 in the course of construction work.
The Nuraghic civilisation is flourishing in Sardinia. The ancient Sardinians are building towers, sanctuaries and aqueducts, casting exquisite objects in bronze and travelling throughout the Mediterranean, in contact with the other civilisations of the age.
Sisaia, a Nuraghic woman from the ‘Bonnannaro Culture’, undergoes brain surgery. And survives.
Construction begins on the Nuraghic sanctuary of Romanzesu, near Bitti.
The first human settlement in the Tiscali Cave.
The Su Tempiesu well temple is built and shall continue to be used until the 9th century BCE.
On Mount Senes, near Irgoli, the temple of Janna 'e Pruna and the sacred spring Su Notante are built: they shall remain a devotional site for the Nuraghic populations until the 9th century BCE.
The first stone is laid for Pontes Castle, in Galtellì. It shall continue to be used until the 15th century.
According to tradition, on his return from the Holy Land, Judge Gonario di Torres vows to build a church for the Madonna.
Painters from Umbria or Lazio arrive in Galtellì to fresco the church of San Pietro with episodes from the Old and New Testaments.
A certain Fra Paolo from Rome becomes bishop of Galtellì and brings a life-size wooden sculpture of Christ on the Cross to the parish church (where it still is today).
Construction begins on the church of San Gavino Martire in Gavoi.
A church dedicated to St Bartholomew the Apostle, built in the Gothic Aragonese style, is consecrated in Meana Sardo.
Construction is completed on the Catalan Gothic church of Sant'Antioco Martire in Atzara.
The sanctuary of the Madonna di Gonare, at the top of the eponymous mountain, is consecrated.
Perdìtta Basigheddu, convicted of witchcraft by the Court of the Inquisition, reconciles with the Church and commissions a bronze bell for the church of Solitudine.
The hydraulic mill for producing orbace, a coarse woollen Sardinian fabric, was built.
The kingdom of Sardinia passes to the duke of Savoy Victor Amadeus II.
The Spanish painter and potter Jacinto Causada Marín makes fourteen tiles for the Via Crucis of the sanctuary of Santi Cosma e Damiano of Mamoiada.
The first miracles of the cult of the Madonna of Miracles in Bitti are attested.
Gregorio Are frescoes the dome of the oratory of Michele Arcangelo in Fonni.
The people of Nuoro rebel against the Spanish feudal lords.
Pope Pius VII grants the plenary indulgence in perpetuum to the pilgrims of the sanctuary in the Bitti countryside.
Hired by Goffredo Casalis to compile the part of the States of His Majesty the King of Sardinia on Sardinia, Vittorio Angius travels across the island to describe the territory. Arriving in Meana Sardo, he notes that the Nolza Nuraghe is one of the island’s most impressive.
Giorgio Asproni gives up the canonry to dedicate himself to politics as a supporter of republicanism.
The church of Santa Maria della Neve in Orune, frescoed by Cagliaritano Antonio Caboni in the Neoclassical style, is inaugurated.
A revolt breaks out on 26 April: led by Paska Zau, the people of Nuoro storm town hall to protest the abolition of community use of the land, privatised under the Edict of Allotments of 1820.
Caffè Tettamanzi opens in Nuoro, a café that shall become the meeting place of the intellectuals of the Athens of Sardinia.
Todde lived to be 113 years old, straddling three centuries and entering the Guinness Book of Records.
After years of wanderings, Giacinto Satta returns to Sardinia and settles in Nuoro.
Priamo Gallisay stages the opera Rossella, based on a novel by Antonio Ballero Don Zua, in Varese.
Mereu publishes his poetry collection. It includes ‘Nanneddu Meu’ which, set to music in 1974, would become one of Sardinia’s most popular songs.
The fountain cited by Grazia Deledda in Colombi e sparvieri is built in Orune.
He is accused of writing poems celebrating the assassination of King Umberto I.
Struck by the beauty of the area, he has a small castle built in the medieval style there, to be used as his hunting lodge.
The artist paints decorative panels on goliardic themes in the hall of Nuoro’s old monastery.
The district doctor has a house built for himself in the Art Nouveau style; it is now the ethnographic museum.
The painter meets Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo in Venice and begins his Divisionist period.
Francesco Ciusa displays La Madre dell'ucciso (The Mother of the Slain) at the Venice Biennale.
The Spanish painter Antonio Ortiz Echague paints La Festa della Confraternita di Atzara (The Festival of the Confraternity of Atzara).
Grazia Deledda and Giuseppe Biasi begin their collaboration. The painting Processione nella Barbagia di Fonni (Procession in the Fonni Barbagia) is selected for the Venice Biennale.
Leopoldo Carta publishes, in the Italian magazine Il Secolo XX, the article ‘L'Atene della Sardegna’, a flattering account of Nuoro cultural life.
Sebastiano Satta publishes I Canti Barbaricini (Barbagia Songs) for which he is hailed the ‘bard of Sardinia’.
Raffaele Ciceri documents the International Exposition in Rome with his Verascope Richard stereoscope.
The archaeologist Ettore Pais is the first to describe the Nuraghic village Tiscali.
Francesco Cucca publishes Veglie Beduine, a collection of poems inspired by his travels in Maghreb.
Grazia Deledda commissions the Sassari furniture makers Fratelli Clemente to furnish a ‘Sardinian style’ study for her home in Rome. Today, the furnishings are preserved in Nuoro, in the writer’s house-museum.
She refines her skills as an illustrator within her sister’s intellectual circle, publishing her work in the Corriere dei Piccoli and other Italian magazines.
Published in instalments in Illustrazione italiana and then in a single volume by Treves editori, Canne al vento (Reeds in the Wind) confirms Grazia Deledda as a writer with a talent for creating scenarios and characters of extraordinary intensity.
Printed initially in Tempio and then in Milan, the magazine is open to collaborations of various kind and different ideas for discussing the island’s social and political future.
She is the first woman in Italy to hold the position.
Set to music by Giuseppe Rachel in the 1930s, it went on to become one of the most famous poems in Sardinian.
After fighting in the ranks of the Sassari Brigade, he settles in Olzai.
The archaeologist accidentally discovers the well while carrying out a scientific search for water.
He displays the painting Il Covone (The Sheaf) at the 12th edition of the event.
She was a supporter of Sardinian autonomy through and through, since childhood.
And then heads to the middle of the island. He will go on to write the travel diary Sea and Sardinia.
The volume is a collection of poems in Logudorese Sardinian.
It will go on to become one of the most important in all Sardinia.
On his return from Venice, the artist paints a cycle for the conference room of the Nuoro town hall.
He will go on to spend his summers in the Mandrolisai town, painting some of his most important works.
She is the first (and only) Italian woman and the second overall (Selma Lagerlöf being the first) to win the prestigious award.
He loses his seat in the Chamber of Deputies for his opposition to the fascist government.
He is celebrated as the leading figure of the goliardic life in Nuoro in Menotti Gallisay’s Frate Sole e i Sette Fratelli (Father Sun and the Seven Brothers).
The archaeologist begins an excavation campaign in the Nuraghic and Roman site of Dorgali.
The ethnologist is sent by the Museum für Völkerkunde, Hamburg.
He wins the Youth Prize for the work at the 4th Regional Labour Exhibition of Cagliari.
The ‘Sebastiano Satta’ library is founded, promoted by the city and province and supported by the ministry. The initial book collection is acquired in collaboration with the Asproni secondary school. Besides a constantly updated catalogue, it preserves an important archive of autograph documents by Sardinian authors and intellectuals.
The artist’s first solo show is held at the Galleria Palladino, Cagliari.
In the painting Bagutta, he depicts the artists and intellectuals in his Milanese coterie.
The artist holds her first solo show at the Galleria Palladino, Cagliari.
A campaign is led by the archaeologist Doro Levi at the Dorgali site.
During this period, the artist is working with Lucio Fontana in Albissola, in the workshop of Tullio Mazzotti.
Mariangela Maccioni and Graziella Sechi Giacobbe are arrested for their anti-fascist activity.
Mariangela Maccioni and Graziella Sechi Giacobbe are arrested for their anti-fascist activity.
Makes the Disegno ininterrotto as a wedding present for Costantino Nivola and Ruth Guggenheim.
Takes over the photography studio of his father, who is struck by a degenerative disease.
On 7 April, she is elected mayor of Orune. She is the first woman mayor in Italy.
Giovanni Ciusa Romagna designs the new church of Solitudine that was to host the remains of Grazia Deledda, brought from Rome. Eugenio Tavolara sculpts the entrance portal, the Via Crucis and the interior decoration; Gavino Tilocca carves the apse relief.
Max Leopold Wagner writes La lingua sarda. Storia, spirito e forma (The Sardinian Language. History, Spirit and Form), laying the foundations for Sardinian linguistics.
Giovanni Pintori becomes director of the Olivetti Advertising Office.
Raffaello Marchi publishes the first in-depth study of Carnival in the Barbagia region, Le maschere barbaricine (Barbagia Carnival Characters).
Graduates from the Fine Arts School of Sassari. Influenced by Mauro Manca, he begins to paint the series ‘Saga of the Nuraghes’.
The sacred well, the only one of its kind in Sardinia, is discovered during the terracing of some private land.
Salvatore Cambosu publishes Miele Amaro (Bitter Honey), a poetic snapshot of Sardinia and its civilisation, stretching back millennia.
Eugenio Tavolara completes the decoration of the Nuoro country church.
The Nuoro writer publishes Due problemi della Sardegna. Analfabetismo e delinquenza (Sardinia’s Two Problems: Illiteracy and Delinquency).
Maria Giacobbe publishes Diario di una maestrina (Diary of a Teacher), which wins the Premio Viareggio - Opera Prima.
The Istituto Sardo Organizzazione Lavoro Artigiano (Sardinian Institute for the Organisation of Artisan Labour) is founded.
Mauro Manca wins the Sardinia Prize for L'Ombra del mare sulla collina (The Shadow of the Sea on the Hill).
The Sarule weaver founds the Nostra Signora di Gonare Textile Cooperative, working with Eugenio Tavolara to revitalise Sardinian craft culture.
Costantino Nivola returns to Orani to decorate the facade of the church of Sa Itria.
The pilot weaving centre opens in Sarule.
Publishes La vendetta barbaricina come ordinamento giuridico, in which he theorises the existence of an oral code of ‘Barbagia’ norms and laws, alternative to that of the State.
Work begins on the dam that will create the reservoir.
The lime kilns, is forrol de calcina, of the Ortuabis Forest are shut down.
The photographer presents the colour documentary Orizzonti visti da Grazia Deledda (Horizons Seen by Grazia Deledda) at the International Amateur Film Festival at Cannes.
Elisa Nivola is appointed professor of History of Educational Theory at the University of Cagliari.
Publishes the poetry collection Fippo operàiu 'e luche soliana, considered a milestone of Sardinian poetry.
Opens the Galleria UNO in Nuoro, the city’s first contemporary art gallery (its name is later changed to Chironi'88).
The piazza-monument dedicated to Sebastiano Satta, designed by Costantino Nivola and Richard Stein, is inaugurated in Nuoro.
The people of Orgosolo revolt against the construction of an Italian military base.
The cave, one of the most spectacular in Sardinia and inhabited since the Nuraghic age, opens to the public.
The Museo della Vita e delle Tradizioni Popolari Sarde, designed by Antoni Simon Mossa, opens in Nuoro , on the Sant’Onofrio Hill: it will become the island’s most important ethnographic museum.
Co-writes, with Gaspare Barbiellini Amidei, Il re è un feticcio, on the antagonism between pastoral ‘civilisation’ and capitalistic consumption.
Salvatore Satta’s masterpiece (in English, The Day of Judgment) is published posthumously by CEDAM.
The Sardinian journalist publishes La rivolta dell'oggetto. Antropologia della Sardegna (The Revolt of the Object. Anthropology of Sardinia).
The civic museum devoted to the numerous finds from the region’s important archaeological sites is inaugurated.
The archaeologist Giovanni Lilliu begins excavating the archaeological area in Fonni.
Maria Lai creates L'alveare del poeta (The Poet’s Hive) in Orotelli, a public work of art devoted to Salvatore Cambosu.
Antonietta Chironi founds the Nuoro Musical Association.
The Nivola Foundation is born, to promote awareness of the work and message of Costantino Nivola and the development of contemporary art. Sardinia Region, Orani Municipality, and Ruth Nivola, the artist's widow, agree to create a museum and research center in memory of the Orani sculptor.
The American architect Peter Chermayeff design’s the structure to emphasise the strong tie between the mountains and the sea.
The Nuoro writer publishes the novel Sempre caro (Always Dear), the first in a trilogy. The main character, Bustianu, is inspired by Sebastiano Satta.
The Museo MAN, with a permanent collection of 20th-century Sardinian art, opens to the public. It will quickly become one of the most interesting contemporary art spaces in Italy.
Bachisio Zizi publishes the novel Erthole, a story about the narrator’s return to a mythical Sardinia, lost in time.
The museum devoted to the Carnival characters of the Barbagia region and other parts of the Mediterranean is founded.
Canto a tenore is added to the UNESCO Immaterial Cultural Heritage List.
Salvatore Niffoi wins the Premio Campiello for La vedova scalza (The Barefoot Widow), a novel set between the wars in an archaic, mysterious Sardinia.
Maria Lai creates this monumental work, the title of which means ‘going away’, dedicated to Grazia Deledda in Nuoro. It will be her last public work of art.
The DCN (Nuorese Cultural District), a network of material and immaterial attractions is founded to promote cultural heritage, tradition and identity and support creative, innovation and growth.
Studio Azzurro creates an interactive, multimedia visitors’ path for MATER, the archaeological museum of Mamoiada.
The multimedia museum devoted to the sheep’s milk cheese symbolic of local pastoral culture is inaugurated in Gavoi.
Transhumance is added to the UNESCO Immaterial Cultural Heritage List.
