Cagliari

Cagliari, the capital of Sardinia, was founded, according to myth, by Aristaeus, the son of the god Apollo and the nymph Cyrene. In fact, the area of the present town has been inhabited since the Neolithic times, while the ancient Caralis was probably founded by the Phoenicians. Dominated by the Carthaginians from the fifth century BC, it came under the control of the Romans, together with the whole of Sardinia and Corsica, as a result of the First Punic War in 238 BC. The capital of the province of Sardinia et Corsica, Caralis was conquered by the Vandals in the fifth century, and was for a short time the capital of an independent kingdom of Sardinia. Conquered by the Byzantines, it underwent successive invasions and occupations by the Goths, Lombards and Saracens. Under the intrusive protection of naval powers of Pisa and Genoa for a long time, Cagliari and the whole of Sardinia were conquered by the Aragonese in the fourteenth century. The seat of the Viceroy of Aragon and, starting in the sixteenth century, of the Spanish viceroys, Cagliari and Sassari both contended for the role of the main city of the island. In 1666, an anti-Spanish revolt culminated in the murder of the Viceroy Camarassa. At the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, Sardinia was assigned first to Austria and then, from 1720 until the unification of Italy, to the Savoy family, who were honoured with the title of Kings of Sardinia.