Atzara

In the first decades of the twentieth century painters came to Atzara, Spanish and Sardinian, and they stayed: what had called them was the village costume, the women's above all, with its bright colours and a headdress called tiaggiòla that has no equal in any other costume of the island. From those stays was born what is rightly called the school of Atzara, which counted for a good deal in the development of painting in Sardinia. The museum of modern and contemporary art opened in the village in 2000 bears the name of one of those Spanish painters, Antonio Ortiz Echague, and grew from an idea of Antonio Corriga, a painter from Atzara and a pupil of Filippo Figari; it also holds works by another local man, Vittorio Tolu. The costume, meanwhile, is still worn by many older women, while the men gave it up after the Second World War.

The other thing Atzara has been known for since the Middle Ages is wine, and here too the village stands apart. In all the Barbagia wine means Cannonau and nothing else; here, instead, they have always worked by blending, measuring out Cannonau, Monica and Bovale Sardo, helped by a microclimate that suits the vine. Casalis, in 1855, took the trouble to describe it. Today wine remains the pivot of the economy, with a few small cellars that stake everything on quality. The village, at 543 metres on the western side of the Gennargentu, is made of granite houses divided into quarters with Sardinian names, and the two things that made it known are even in the title of one of its feasts: «From wine to painting», on the last weekend of November.