Padru

The village's name is an enclosure. In the speech of northern Sardinia su padru meant the piece of land next to a settlement kept for the temporary sheltering of transhumant flocks or of stray animals. The arrival of that name can be followed year by year in the parish registers: it appears for the first time in 1777 at Buddusò, in cubili dicto Padru, inside the tract called Orgheri; for decades the two names alternate in the writings, until in 1822 Orgheri, a pre-Latin name probably linked to springs, is written for the last time and Padru replaces it for good.

The settlement grew out of the shepherds' shelters of the Badde de Lernu, which as they expanded merged into one another during the nineteenth century; the first families recorded bear the surnames Nieddu, Mandras, Demela, Langiu and Saba. In 1848, when the province of Ozieri was abolished, the boundaries between Alà, Buddusò and Bitti were at last fixed after nearly half a century of disputes that had cost killings and family feuds, and the territory of Padru was recognised as part of Buddusò. It became a municipality of its own only on the third of January 1996, by regional law and after a referendum. Logudorese Sardinian is spoken here, except in the hamlet of Biasì, where they speak Gallurese.