Ozieri (SS)

Lying on the bottom of a natural basin, Ozieri is one of the most captivating destinations in northeastern Sardinia.

The traditions and architecture of the town are interesting, while the millennial history is fascinating which, going back thousands of years, leads us to learn about the culture of which Ozieri was the cradle, the most recent of the Neolithic cultures.

The town's urban fabric is varied, and adapts to the slope of the hills: from time to time a roof terrace adorned with flowers appears between the tall houses.

On the edge of the old part of the town - whose points of greatest interest are the Carlo Alberto squares and that of the ancient Fonte Grixoni - there is the cathedral which houses a splendid 16th-century Sardinian polyptych made by the "master of Ozieri", the most important painter of the sixteenth century. The polyptych, which represents the miraculous apparition of the Sanctuary of the Madonna di Loreto, shows Spanish influences and hints of a Flemish manner.

The complex of the seventeenth-century convent of San Francesco, on the other hand, houses the Archaeological Museum, in the sales of which materials from excavations in the area and previously exhibited in the Sassari museum are exhibited.

Most of the finds can be traced back to the culture known as Ozieri - or San Michele from the name of the cave in which the most important findings were made which, between 3,500 and 2,700 BC, dominated the island.