Let's talk about Gallura - The fatal historical error that caused the traumatic fall of the Kingdom of Gallura in 1288, one of the four states into which Sardinia was divided in the Middle Ages, is always the same: the delivery of one of our territorial legal institutions to a foreigner: in this case, to a quarrelsome Pisan. I'll make it easy because, in the short space of the newspaper, I'm more interested in highlighting the political cause than the disastrous final outcome.

Nino Visconti King of Gallura – Ugolino, known as Nino, was only ten years old when he became by chance ruler of the Kingdom of Gallura, a poor but strategically important state. He belonged to the Pisan Visconti family. His grandfather was the famous Ugolino della Gherardesca, Count of Donoratico, in Tuscany. He was born in Pisa in 1265, the same year in which Dante Alighieri was born in Florence, who in his youth became a great friend of his, even though they were both citizens of opposing states. So much so that the information about Sardinia and its people that appears seven times in the Divine Comedy, Dante must have learned from Nino.

The Battle of Meloria – Nino Visconti was on the island, perhaps in Terranova (now Olbia), when on 6 August 1284 the Pisans were severely defeated by the Genoese in the naval battle of Meloria. Upon hearing the news, he left the Kingdom in the hands of vicars and rushed to Pisa, which was shocked and in the grip of political chaos. He resided in a small palace in Borgo, after Ponte Vecchio, which still preserves a small panel with the Gallura emblem of the Rooster at the top of the façade.

Nino “diarca” in Pisa – The very complicated historical period from 1284 to 1288 is characterized by the immediate nomination of his grandfather, Ugolino della Gherardesca, as podestà and captain of the People of Pisa; by his diplomatic attempts to break the anti-Pisan league between Genoa, Lucca and Florence; by the criticisms of his work carried out by his grandson Nino Visconti, which continued even after the latter's election as captain of the People alongside his grandfather, who remained podestà. Indeed, the new government of the Two Lords divided the Pisans into two factions so angry that it forced the archbishop Ruggeri degli Ubaldini to expel Nino from Pisa on 30 June 1288, and to imprison the old count Ugolino in the infamous Torre della Fame in July, where he died of starvation eight months later.

The end of the Kingdom of Gallura – The Kingdom of Gallura was immediately invaded by municipal troops who effectively overthrew the State, making it an overseas territory of the Republic of Pisa.

Attempts at reconquest – Nino attempted several times to regain possession of his Kingdom, allying himself with Pisa's enemies: the Lucchese, the Florentines and even the Genoese.

In the countryside of Lucca, during the siege of the castle of Caprona, in the Pisan Valdarno, she met the Florentine Dante Alighieri in 1289. At that time they were both twenty-five years old, and already married with children.

Death of Nino Visconti – In 1295 Nino became a citizen of Genoa. We do not know for sure when and where he died. The Cronaca Fiorentina lists him as dead on September 1, 1296. Some, however, claim that he died in Lucca on January 9 or 12, 1298.

According to Isidoro Del Lungo, author of Dante ne' tempi di Dante in 1888, Nino died at the age of only thirty-one in Genoa on 11 January 1296, and his heart was transferred, by will, to the church of San Francesco in Lucca, where today you can actually see the site where the urn was walled up on the right wall at the height of the altar. An inscription kept in photocopy in the National Library of Lucca, reports verbatim: hic est corpus illustris viri domini ugolini iudicis gallurensis domini tertie partis regni calleri qui obiit anno domini M.CC.LXXXXX.VIII die XI ianuarii.

Dante mourned his friend in the eighth canto of Purgatory: "... gentle judge Nin, how pleased I was / when I saw you not among the wicked!"

The heir Giovanna Visconti – After Nino, ownership of the Kingdom of Gallura passed to his daughter Giovanna, wife of Rizzardo II da Camino, lord of Trevigi, who, in 1339, passed it by will to her uterine brother Azzo Visconti, lord of Milan.

The Milanese Viscontis maintained their rights over Gallura throughout the fourteenth century, even planning to reconquer it even when it had long been Catalan-Aragonese. Finally, in 1447, the last of the Viscontis, Filippo Maria, left it upon his death to his protégé Alfonso IV (or V) the Magnanimous, ruler of the Crown of Aragon, a complex of states of which the Kingdom of Sardinia with Gallura had been part since 1324.

(uniononline)

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