Italian artworks

A small town on a low plateau on a bend in the Flumendosa River, Ballao is perhaps the heir to a Roman mansio built to defend the mines in the area. The urban centre does not have any valuable buildings, but it does have numerous dwellings built using a very ancient technique: in the lower part they are made of schist stone, while the rest are made of ladiri, which are sun-baked clay and straw bricks. Along the old road to Silius, one can see the remains of the 13th century Orguglioso or Sassai castle, built by the judges of Cagliari. In the surrounding area, one can visit the disused mining site of Corti Rosas - included in the Geo-mineral Park of Sardinia, where one can look for beautiful antimonite crystals in the heaps of residue - and Funtana Coberta, a sacred Nuragic well of the oldest type.

The mine of Su Suergiu, about 2 kilometres north-west of Villasalto, was active between 1880 and 1987 and was the most important mining and processing site for antimony in Italy. Today it is part of the Geomining Park of Sardinia. The Mineralogical Archaeology Museum, housed in the management building, reconstructs the complete stages of the production process and the lives of the miners through the exhibition, divided into several areas, of the working tools used in the mine, as well as some specimens of minerals and rocks.

On the edge of the Flumendosa alluvial plain, in a fertile area sheltered from the winds and dotted with fishponds, Muravera was populated since antiquity, but over the centuries incursions from the sea and floods caused by the river made it inhospitable. Today, having closed some mines, it lives off agriculture, in particular the cultivation of citrus fruits, celebrated in early spring in a lively festival. In the 1970s, the building boom along the coast made the area touristy, with beautiful beaches and crystal clear sea. In the village are the late-Gothic 16th century parish church of St Nicholas and a small centre with typical low courtyard houses. The Mif-Museo dell'Imprenditoria femminile (Museum of Female Entrepreneurship), a museum system in Muravera, has two venues dedicated to two symbolic women of the country. At 99 Via Marconi, in front of the Church of S. Nicola, the former Carabinieri barracks houses the Women's Museum Francesca Sanna Sulis - centred on the figure of this 18th-century entrepreneur active in the field of silk production, spinning and weaving - and is also the venue for temporary art exhibitions. Not far away, on Via Speranza, an 18th-century courtyard house is now home to the Candelai Museum, which is inspired by Aunt Savina's activity of making votive candles. Particularly eagerly awaited by locals and an attraction for tourists is the Maskaras Summer Carnival, in early August: an opportunity to admire traditional Sardinian costumes and masks from all over the island. At the end of August, on the other hand, the feast of St Augustine takes place, one of the most important in the area: the processions and dances are attended by groups in traditional costume, the traccas, or carts pulled by oxen yokes that have largely disappeared elsewhere, appear, and the masters of the launeddas, the ancient three-reed wind instrument, perform.

Class of 1716, Francesca Sanna Sulis was born to wealthy landowners in the backward Sardinia of the Savoy. An ante litteram stylist and entrepreneur, she began cultivating mulberry trees for silkworm cultivation, from which she obtained silk for her clothes, which, unlike the heavy and bulky ones of the time, were light and facilitated women's movements. From here, he established a textile factory with over 700 employees, to whom he offered tailoring education and training. Donna Francesca Sanna Sulis was also centuries ahead of her time on corporate welfare: when her employees got married and had to move with their husbands to another location, she gave them a loom so they could work at home. He was so successful that his silk and confections were in demand in Lombardy, Piedmont and even reached Russia. The museum, which is part of the MIF - Museo dell'Imprenditoria Femminile (Museum of Women's Entrepreneurship), together with the Candlemakers' Museum, Museo dei Candelai, recounts the entrepreneurial, artistic and cultural life of Donna Francesca Sanna Sulis. It also exhibits locally produced handicrafts and is a venue for temporary art exhibitions.

Armungia is a charming little town, clustered around the nurhag tower in the centre. It is located next to the ex-town hall, which is now home to the small Sa Domu de is Aìnas Historic and Ethnographic Museum. Other museum attractions include the Blacksmith's Forge and the Emilio and Joyce Lussu Historical Museum, located in the "Secretary's House", a beautiful residence built at the turn of the twentieth century and located in the town's main square. The writer's birthplace, in the Cannedu quarter, is also part of the museum itinerary. It is an interesting example of the local construction style, as it is made from blocks of shale, a soft rock that is quite easy to work with.

Built between the second half of the 12th century and the end of the 13th, the Church of St Pantaleon, named after the patron saint of Dolianova, has an unusual structure. It is a harmonious mix of the Pisan style dating from the first construction phase, with a mix of Romanesque and Gothic in the second phase, and Islamic influences in the final phase.In an external wall there is a Roman sarcophagus, while inside, amid the rustic columns of different styles, you can see a rare baptismal font made from sandstone in the early Christian period, as well as an early 16th-century altarpiece (the Martyrdom of St Pantaleon) by a Spanish artist.

The museum is dedicated to the writer and politician Emilio Lussu, born in Armungia in 1890, and to his wife Joyce, writer and partisan. Through pictures, writings, documents, videos and autobiographical stories, the recently-installed multimedia exhibition traces the life and political career of Emilio Lussu from the early days until the Great War, the fight against fascism and the aftermath of World War II. The museum is located in the "Secretary's House", a beautiful residence built at the turn of the twentieth century in the town's main square. The writer's birthplace in the Cannedu quarter, which is one of the places on the museum itinerary, is built from the traditional local shale, a type of stone that is quite easy to work with.

Built from limestone blocks, the sacred nuraghic well, where the worship of water was once practised, is one of the most ancient and fascinating to be found on the island of Sardinia. Access is down a staircase leading to the inside, where there is an underground chamber more than 5 metres deep. Towards the top, it gradually becomes narrower and has a corbelled tholos ceiling, typically found on nuraghic towers There is still a chamber to collect the water from the active spring. A handful of nuraghic finds were discovered inside, along with many fragments of Roman crockery and pieces of more recent pottery.

Today, this is mainly noticeable by the abundance of greenery and flowers around the edges of the stone houses, or by certain well-sculpted portals – for example at the Doge's Palace, with its history as a 15th-century fortified building – but Oratino has been the home of well-known painters, sculptors and stonemasons, even outside Molise. This can best be seen by entering the church of S. Mary of Loreto, ancient although reconstructed in the 16th century, with remarkable 18th century sculptures and frescoes (of particular note is an Assumption of the Virgin in the vault), or in the parish church of S. Maria Assunta. Little more than a village, Oratino is perched on a limestone cliff from where the Biferno valley is clearly visible in all its breadth. In fact, this corner of Molise has quite a few cliffs, and in fact the so-called morge, isolated rocky blocks of limestone and sandstone. On the morgia closest to Oratino, which is called la Rocca and is located a few kilometres from the town in the direction of the valley, stands a four-storey square-based tower that, impressively, has more than a millennium of history behind it. The roots of the settlements in the area are actually even older: archaeological excavations conducted around the tower have uncovered materials from the Bronze Age, even before the Samnites, and a mediaeval village. The village is thought to have been abandoned after the earthquake of the mid-15th century, the same one that reduced Campobasso to rubble. Nowadays, this morgia is once again frequented by rock climbers: they use it as a climbing wall.

Cala di Seta. In 1769, Ligurian families from Tabarqa, Tunisia, settled here. From here, at the northernmost point of the Island of Sant'Antioco, take a ferry to the island of San Pietro. Before leaving, you can enjoy the atmosphere of the town, among the houses painted in white or pastel colours. In the former slaughterhouse building is the Macc-Museum of Contemporary Art Calasetta, dedicated to abstract and informal art from the 1930s to the 1970s.

Carloforte is the only settlement on the island of San Pietro. The coastal town was founded in 1738 by a group of families originally from Liguria, but living in Tunisia. Carloforte still reflects its origins in its architecture and culture. Not surprisingly, the houses, white or pastel, develop along carrugi-like streets, or follow the hillsides with steps and arches. An interesting history of St. Peter's Church, which was rebuilt in the late 18th century on the ruins of a 13th-century church dedicated to the "Novelli Innocenti", in memory of a shipwreck in which some of the young boys who ventured on the semi-legendary "Crusade of the Children" died, in around 1212. Between May and June, the international food fair for tuna of quality, celebrating the traditional activity of the tuna fishery in Carloforte, the last remaining on the Sardinian coast and one of the oldest in the Mediterranean.