Las Plassas, Marmilla Castle

Las Plassas is located on the plains, east of Sanluri. On the only relief in the area, a marbled cone-shaped hill (274 m above sea level), stands the castle of Marmilla. Together with that of Arcuentu, near Guspini, and that of Monreale, near Sardara, it constituted the fortified border line between the kingdom of Cagliari and that of Arborea.
The castle of Marmilla, although reduced to ruins, is one of the most picturesque and fascinating in Sardinia, due to its spectacular isolation at the top of a perfectly conical hill, which dominates the wide and low surrounding plain.
Cited in a document from 1164, then presumably built by the middle of the 12th century, the castle of Marmilla had alternate events and different masters, starting with Barisone I of Lacon-Serra d'Arborea, and then passing through 1192 in Ligurian hands. Throughout the 13th century, the fortification was inserted in the domain of the kingdom of Arborea, and then ended up again in foreign hands, more precisely the Pisans; starting from 1324, the castle will be disputed between the Arboreans and the Aragonese, becoming part of the latter's domains with the definitive defeat of the islanders.
What remains of the castle of Marmilla denotes a series of construction phases. A vast wall delimits the fortification of about 550 square meters: inside there are the remains of a tank and two towers, one in an N and an S shape, near the entrance.
The structure is made of precisely cut sandstone corners; ashlar stones have been used at the base of the northern tower. The tank, located below the decking, is dug into the rock and covered with sandstone corners; a second tank is located outside the wall, near the northern side of the fortification.
In the municipal warehouses there is a capital already reused in the walls of the castle, with two schematic human heads among plant branches, perhaps belonging to a 13th century Romanesque church.

History of studies
For the castle of Las Plassas, first of all, the article by Foiso Fois in 1981 is worth mentioning; the 1983 work of Giovanni Anedda. Noteworthy are the historical studies conducted by Giovanni Serreli in recent years: the monograph entitled “Las Plassas: the origins and history” was published in 2000, while the article “The castle of Marmilla in Las Plassas” was published in 2003, in a miscellaneous collection. Finally, there is an archaeological study conducted by Francesca Carrada, also in 2003.

Bibliography
F. Fois, “The stronghold of Marmilla: the castle of Las Plassas”, in Almanacco di Cagliari, 1981, without pages;
G. Anedda, Monuments and history of Barumini, Gergei and Las Plassas, Cagliari, 1983;
G. Murru, “A heap of ruins rich in history”, in F. Fois Castelli della Sardegna Medieval, edited by B. Fois, Cinisello Balsamo, Amilcare Pizzi, 1992, p. 144; R. Coroneo, Romanesque architecture from the middle of the thousand to the first '300, Nuoro, Ilisso, 1993, sheet 174;
G. Serreli, Las Plassas: the origins and history, Cagliari, 3Esse, 2000;
F. Carrada, “Preliminary study of the finds from the castle of Marmilla (Las Plassas, Cagliari)”, in Roccas: aspects of the fortification system in Sardinia: proceedings of the meetings on castles in Sardinia (2002) by the Arxiu de Tradicions, edited by S. Chirra, Oristano, 2003, pp. 77-96;
G. Serreli, “The castle of Marmilla in Las Plassas”, in Roccas: Fortification system in Sardinia: proceedings of meetings on castles in Sardinia (2002) by Arxiu de Tradicions, edited by S. Chirra, Oristano, 2003, pp. 71-76;
G. Serreli, All the castles of the Four Kingdoms, “Darwin. Notebooks”, n. 1 (July-August 2006), pp. 104-109.