Sassari, Palazzo Cugia

The building is one of the most significant architectural emergencies that overlook the narrow and popular street to the Rosello fountain.
The eighteenth-century residence of the Marquis Cugia di Sant'Orsola is influenced by the manners of some Jesuit Sassari factories of the 16th and 17th centuries, while the balconies are made of Iberian brands.
In the lower part of the façade, rather altered by serious interventions and in a poor state of conservation, the entrance portal stands out, flanked by two oculi that give light to the large entrance hall from which a pincer staircase starts; all the openings have flat, slightly detected exhibitions. On the main floor, four balconies with molded supports, slate floors and graceful wrought iron balustrades break the monotony of the smooth plastered surface.
These artifacts, the fruit of a deep-rooted artisanal tradition, with their convoluted linear patterns, will remain for a long time the only decorative elements in the austere facades of city houses and will serve as a model for numerous private buildings in the north of the island, before the advent of continental canons linked to Baroque and Neoclassicism.

History of studies
A review of studies can be found in the bibliography relating to the fact sheet in the volume of the “History of Art in Sardinia” on nineteenth-century architecture (1992).

Bibliography
S. Naitza, Architecture from the late 17th century to purist classicism. Nuoro, Ilisso, 1992, sheet 44.