There is not in Italy what there is in Sardinia, nor in Sardinia what there is in Italy.
Francesco Cetti, zoologist, 18th century (Storia naturale di Sardegna)
Thisland resembles no other place. Sardinia is something else. Enchanting spaces and distances to travel-nothing finished, nothing definitive. It is like freedom itself.
In the late 1800s,Europe had a peaceable bull’s-eye in the northernindustrialized countries (Great Britain,France,Germany,Denmark, and theLow Countries), bordered by slightly stroppierIreland,Austria-Hungary, andFinland, surrounded in turn by still more violentSpain,Italy,Greece, and the Slavic countries. Today the peaceable center has swelled to encompass all of Western and Central Europe, but a gradient oflawlessness extending toEastern Europe and themountainousBalkans is still visible. There are gradients within each of these countries as well: the hinterlands and mountains remained violent long after theurbanized and denselyfarmed centers had calmed down. Clan warfare was endemic to theScottish highlands until the 18th century, and to Sardinia,Sicily,Montenegro, and other parts of the Balkans until the 20th. It’s no coincidence that the two blood-soaked classics with which I began this book—theHebrew Bible and theHomericpoems—came from peoples that lived in ruggedhills and valleys.
Steven Pinker,The Better Angels of Our Nature (2012)
People inevitably think of themselves as Sardinian first andItalian second (or sometimes even third, after European). A book written once about Sardinia was entitledThe Unconquered Island, and it's true. Invaded and exploited it has been, yes, but not conquered.
Sardinia - Dana Facaros & Michael Pauls, Cadogan Guide (2003)
Sardinians as a race are prone to a very non latin, almost celtic wistfulness and melancholy.
Sardinia - Dana Facaros & Michael Pauls, Cadogan Guide (2003)
In part, the Sardinian outlook on political matters is a feature of their heritage ofmedievalindependence. Even to peasants and herdsmen, the close, convivial world of thegiudicati had great advantages over the more exploitative rule of Pisans, Genoese, Aragonese and Spaniards, and the Sardinians never forgot that they had once been in charge of their own destinies. The long wars for independence of Mariano IV and Eleonora of Arborea against Aragon created a sense of nationhood that never entirely disappeared, even though the Sardinians lost.
Sardinia - Dana Facaros & Michael Pauls, Cadogan Guide (2003)
The Sards themselves are not a talkative race (unless you get them going on politics or some other subject dear to their hearts). Nor are they theatrical or gregarious like other Italians, but they look frankly in the eye and treat you as a human being first before they judge you as anything else.D.H. Lawrence wondered at the boldness ofwomen. You will probably never meet an obsequious Sard.
Sardinia - Dana Facaros & Michael Pauls, Cadogan Guide (2003)
The Sardinians are a sturdy race, but at the same time alert, lively, and brave, even to rashness; firm friends but implacable enemies; quick of understanding, of vivacious imagination and passionately fond ofpoetry, zealous in maintaining theirrights andliberty, but loyal and fond of their King and Country.
John Smith - A System of Modern Geography: Or, the Natural and Political History of the Present State of the World, Volume 2 - Sherwood Neely and Jones, 1811
.jpg)
