Codrongianos

The name of this village is the name of a garrison. In the third century, to guard the road that ran from Karalis to Turris Libisonis, the Romans built here the Castrum Gordianus, and over the centuries that name became first Cotroianu and then Codrongianos. Before the Romans the place was already full of people: in the territory of the comune some sixty nuraghi are counted, among them the nuraghe Nieddu, single-towered, eleven metres high and roofed with a tholos. In the Middle Ages there were two Cotroianu, one higher up and one lower down, Cotroianu Jossu, both in the curatoria of Fiolinas inside the giudicato of Torres: from the thirteen hundreds the lower one lost its people until it disappeared, and out of the other came the village of today. In 1420, after the Aragonese conquest, it was joined to the barony of Ploaghe and given in fief to the Aymerich, from whom it was redeemed in 1839, with the end of the feudal system.

A few kilometres from the built-up area stands the basilica of the Santissima Trinità di Saccargia, one of the best-known Romanesque churches in Sardinia, with Pisan influences: it was raised in 1116 by the judge Costantino I of Torres together with his wife Marcusa, next to the village of the same name. The monks were driven out by the Aragonese in the fourteen hundreds, the abbey's goods divided and given to the clergy, and the title of prior taken by the bishop of Sassari. The two things this place is — the garrison and the basilica — are both on the arms: above, the emblem of the Camaldolese congregation that is painted inside Saccargia; below, a Roman castrum. Here was born the blessed Elisabetta Sanna, and her house is now a museum. And here, out in the fields, stands the converter station of the SACOI cable, which links the electricity grids of Sardinia and Corsica with that of the mainland.