Orosei (NU)

Orosei is the historical capital of the homonymous Barony, which lies between the sea and the eastern slopes of Mount Tuttavista, in the fertile plain formed by the mouth of the Cedrino river generally called "Valle del Cedrino".

The presence of the Cedrino River has always made the alluvial plain particularly fertile, but also characterized the area by floods and floods, often repeated.

With a compact and irregular shape, Orosei is articulated around the two urban fulcrums represented by the interesting squares of the People and Asproni.

The town retains numerous civil and religious architectures that recall the important administrative and commercial role it played in the past.

Its territory is rich in prehistoric traces, consisting of 17 nuraghi and 6 nuragic villages. There are no traces of the Phoenician presence (attested instead in the nearby Galtellì and Serra Òrrios), while the Roman one, already documented by ceramic fragments dating back to the III-II century. BC, it consolidated in the Augustan and especially late imperial age, as evidenced by the recent identification of six small rural centers of that time.

The formation of the village, with the construction of towers and walls presumably dates back to the early Middle Ages, although the first documents date back to the century. XI.

Orosei grew in importance especially in the century. XIV, for its bastion castle, together with that of Galtellì, of the southern border of the Giudicato of Gallura and for its port, a focal point for trade relations with the Italian peninsula.

The Pisans enjoyed particular mercantile privileges, whose presence is documented by the construction of a good number of rural and urban churches, and by the adoption by the Municipality of the civil statutes of Pisa.

The continuous raids of the Barbary pirates, the persistent scourge of malaria and the progressive decrease in maritime traffic (the recurrent floods of the Cedrino ended up causing the filling of the ancient port) determined its subsequent decline, which only relatively recently began to contrast: with the construction in 1876 of the bridge over the river and with the start, in the early years of the twentieth century, of the reclamation of the lower Cedrino valley, through the construction of the embankments and the first canalization works of the plain.