Galtellì

Galtellì was a bishop's seat and the chief town of its curatoria before Orosei became one. The diocese, set up between the tenth and the twelfth century, was suppressed on the eleventh of September 1495; when it was restored in 1779 it still bore the name of Galtellì-Nuoro, but the bishop lived at Nuoro, and in 1928 even the name went. Above the village the judges of Gallura built, at the beginning of the eleventh century, the castle of Pontes over a Roman fortification: in 1324 its castellan refused to recognise the authority of the king of Aragon and held out under siege.

In the old centre stands the former cathedral of San Pietro, which holds inside a cycle of Romanesque frescoes. Among these streets Grazia Deledda set Canne al vento, calling the village Galte, and since 1993 there has been a literary park named after her; a few steps from San Pietro one can still see the house where she stayed. Between the wars and until after the war Galtellì formed a single comune with Irgoli, Loculi and Onifai, called Irgoli di Galtellì. And in 2006 the council removed from the street names every reference to the House of Savoy, after insulting words addressed to Sardinians by its last descendant: via Umberto became via Karol Wojtyła, via Vittorio Emanuele became via Beata Vergine Assunta, via Savoia became via Sa Prama.