The Ancient Palazzo di Città stands in the heart of Castello, overlooking Piazza Palazzo together with the Cathedral of Cagliari and Palazzo Regio. Its origins date back to 1331 when Alfonso IV d’Aragona gifted this area, already used during the Pisan era, to the city’s councillors so they could build the Palazzo and use it for their meetings. It, therefore, became the municipal headquarters from the Middle Ages up to the 1800s.
In 1896, the mayor Ottone Bacaredda instructed the City Council to move to its new headquarters, current-day Palazzo Civico in Via Roma. The Palazzo di Città, no longer a political and administrative headquarters, became home to the Music College up until 1970. It was then abandoned and only at the start of the XXI century was it restored and returned to the city as an exhibition space for Cagliari’s Civic Museums. It hosts temporary exhibitions, mainly of modern and contemporary art.
The building is spread across four floors and is a fine example of eighteenth-century architecture following important restoration work which transformed its original appearance. The Palazzo’s main facade is adorned with half-pillars and has a central arched entrance door. The latter is preceded by a semicircular flight of steps and is flanked by two framed windows crowned with volutes. The side facade, on via Canelles, has been elegantly elaborated and split into three elements with parastades topped with ionic capitals. Still on the outside, we find two epigraphs: the one above the entrance door, immediately after the city’s coat of arms, is a reminder of Carlo V’s visit to Cagliari (1535). The other dates to the XVIII century and records when the restoration work was completed (1787).
