Bonnanaro

A whole epoch of Sardinian prehistory bears the name of this village. The Bonnanaro culture is a facies of the early Bronze Age, recognisable by its pottery, by its way of building and by how the dead were buried, and it has since been found over much of the island; but its first traces came to light here, in 1889, inside the necropolis of Corona Moltana, which lies about two kilometres south-east of the built-up area. The village proper is much younger: it comes into being around the year one thousand, it was called Gunar and then Gunnanor, and it lies in the valley between Monte Pelau and Monte Arana, in the old region of the Meilogu. In the old centre have survived some manor houses of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the churches of Santa Maria Iscalas, Santa Barbara and Santa Croce and the parish church of San Giorgio, which has a neoclassical front.

In 1795 Bonnanaro took part in the risings against the feudal lords led by Giovanni Maria Angioy, and the rebels destroyed the feudatory's palace; the real redemption came later, in 1839, with the abolition of the feudal system. Today the village is known for two things that come out of the ground: cherries, which have their fair at the beginning of June, and the vine, grown here since very ancient times — in its countryside there are extremely rare wine-grape varieties, which the University of Sassari is studying, and the wine of Bonnanaro has taken prizes beyond the island as well. On the top of Monte Arana there is then a little church, left almost in ruins until a few years ago and now restored: on 7 September a country feast is held there, and from the open space in front one looks down into the valley of the Nuraghi.