Palazzata di via Roma

The palazzata of Via Roma is a continuous row of porticoes: a late-nineteenth-century curtain of eclectic facades in Liberty, neo-Gothic and Renaissance styles. For over a century this has been the city's postcard: one continuous stage set between the port and the old town.

Why it matters

The palazzata is Cagliari's declaration of modernity. When the new port was built from 1881, the modest two-storey houses, tanneries and fish stalls that clung to the shore between the bastion of Sant'Agostino and the Darsena were swept away, and in their place rose a harmonised row of apartment palazzi with a running portico at street level. The regional tourism page calls the result one of Cagliari's most celebrated views, the first thing seen arriving from the sea — a facade consciously composed like a theatre backdrop. Individual buildings reward attention: Palazzo Vivanet, the first neo-Gothic building in the city with pointed-arch porticoes; the Palazzi Magnini at the via Baylle corner; Palazzo Garzia; Palazzo Leone-Manca, once home of the Olympia cinema; and the Palazzi Vascellari-Beretta and Palazzo Ravenna flanking the Sardinian Regional Council building.

What to notice

• The discipline of the portico line, unbroken for blocks, which lets wildly different styles sit side by side without quarrelling.
• Palazzo Devoto of 1870, the pre-existing survivor beside the late-17th-century church of San Francesco da Paola — proof that the row absorbed older neighbours rather than erasing them.
• Palazzo Civico, the town hall of 1907 in white limestone, blending Catalan-Gothic references in its portico with a liberty facade; its two octagonal towers rise 38 metres with corner obelisks carved with the heads of the four Moors.
• The view from the middle of the street looking up: rooftop lines, escutcheons and wrought-iron work that vanish at ground level.
• The evening passeggiata, when the porticoes fill and the facades catch the last light from the harbour side.

Context and history

Urban ambition followed the port works. In 1896 the city council voted to move the town hall from the old Palazzo di Città in Castello down to Via Roma, the foundation stone was laid in 1899, and the new Palazzo Civico was inaugurated in 1907 under mayor Ottone Bacaredda — the symbolic moment when civic power left the fortress hill for the modern port district. The 1943 bombings smashed much of the waterfront, and restoring the buildings to their original appearance took years. Today the palazzata fronts the working historic port, its quays running 5,800 metres, with ferries for Civitavecchia, Naples and Palermo and a cruise terminal; the piazza Matteotti intermodal hub sits about three minutes away, so most travellers walk this street within an hour of arriving.