:. introduction

The village where Gramsci lived during his childhood now is a lively town that didn’t forget his origins.

Ghilarza haven’t big city features, and although it has only 5000 inhabitants, it is the most important town in the upland in which is set, because of its utilities.
Every year, town’s cultural parties give birth to the “Mese della Cultura” (Cultural Month), an important event promoted by the Commune with the collaboration of Pro-Loco.

 
:. history
Ghilarza, pleasant town in the centre of Sardinia, easily reachable through the most important routes that connect Cagliari with Sassari and Nuoro, is situated in the Abbasanta upland, near the Montiferru Ridge, that goes down to Tirso River, in a territory that alternate between wide expanses destined to the pastures, and areas where the “Macchia Mediterranea” (a typical mediterranian vegetation) preserve precious testimony from the prehistory to the Phoenician and Byzantine period.
From the Giudicati period (giudicati: four kingdoms in ancient Sardinia) Ghilarza keeps San Pietro Church in Zuri, and in the town, near the Aragonese Tower (unfinished because of the problems of the last Oristano’s Marquis), San Palmerio Church.

From the second half of the ‘800, the agricultural and pastoral economy becomes craftsmanship economy, characterized by the manufacturing of the stone, the iron and the wood. The town is characterized by its houses made of basalt, placed against one another, with the garden at the back of the house. From the XX century the reputation of Ghilarza’s stonecutters increased, and so they were employed in many centres of the island, also in the construction of Tirso dam. Since then the building trade has a great importance in Ghilarza economy, together with commerce and tertiary. Ghilarza was also an important cultural centre, because since 1200 his school permitted to begin the first studies, and around the half of the ‘800 was founded the “Circolo di lettura” (Reading Club) and the “Società di Mutuo Soccorso” (Society of Mutual Help), and at the beginning of the ‘900 the firs women’s club.

This cultural context represented the vital energy for lawyers, doctors, soldiers, men of culture. Between them, the most important is Antonio Gramsci, the great thinker and man of culture that lived in Ghilarza during his childhood and youth, and from here he reached human and social values that are the basis of his thought and way of life, that characterize him as a man, as intellectual, as man of letters, educator, politician.

Ghilarza, which is going to become an only town with Abbasanta and Norbello, continues to be an important point of reference for many towns of the island, and still watches with interest at its historical, cultural and social heritage in order to organize the present and watch to the future.