Tratalias

The cathedral came here because another seat had become unliveable. Saracen raids had emptied the island of Sant'Antioco, and the see of the diocese of Sulci was carried to the borgo of Tratalias: the transfer was made official in 1218 by a bull of pope Honorius III, but work on the new cathedral, Santa Maria di Monserrato, had already begun in 1213 and ended in 1282. It is Sardinian Romanesque: two rows of Lombard bands on the façade and a rose window. In those days Tratalias counted for something, protected by the castle of Tului that the giudici of Cagliari had built and which in the 12th century housed the bishops of the Sulcis. Then the village declined: in the 15th century it appears depopulated, and the see had already gone to Iglesias, officially in 1503.

The rest is a story of departures. From 1258 to 1355 the lordship belonged to the Pisan Della Gherardesca; under the Aragonese Tratalias formed a barony with Santadi, held in fief by the bishop, and redeemed itself in 1839. Repopulation began in the 18th century, and in 1853 the village became a comune of the province of Iglesias. Then, in 1954, a dam on the rio Palmas made the artificial lake of monte Pranu, to improve the land of the Basso Sulcis: but the water seeped in, the buildings cracked and sanitary problems followed, so a new village was built a few hundred metres away and everyone moved into it. The old borgo, with its cathedral, stayed where it was. In the territory there are more than forty nuraghi, over five giants' tombs and the nuragic village of Sirimagus.