Villasalto, Su Suergiu Mine

The mining settlement, which today houses the “Su Suergiu” Archaeological-Industrial Museum, is part of an area of great interest for industrial archeology.
The Su Suergiu mine was for many years the most important mine in Italy for the extraction of antimony and was active between about 1880 and 1987, when it was decommissioned.
The plants, now abandoned, overlook a square with a rotary kiln. The most important is the foundry, built in 1882, which develops in a horizontal pattern with large buttresses that support the internal structures, illuminated by large openings.
The most interesting building, as is generally the case in mining settlements, is the management building, located in a prominent position. It is spread over two floors crossed vertically by pilasters and concluded with a ledge, finished with a parapet. At the entrance, a pronaos with arched openings and Corinthian columns supports a balcony. The most original aspect is the concrete decoration, repeated in the capitals of the pronaos and in the reliefs above the windows: flower-inspired, traced back to the first decades of the twentieth century, it alternates leaves, festoons and ovoles with shovels and picks, tools of strenuous mining work.
The mine is part of the Geominerary, Historical and Environmental Park of Sardinia, recognized by UNESCO.

History of studies
The mine is mentioned in several works on industrial archeology in Sardinia.

Bibliography
S. Mezzolani-A. Simoncini, Sardinia to save. Landscapes and mine architecture, Nuoro, Archivio Fotografico Sardo, 1993, pp. 269-275;
F. Masala, Architecture from the Unification of Italy to the End of the 20th Century. Nuoro, Ilisso, 2001, sheet 49

How to get there
The settlement is located under the plateau not far from the town of Villasalto, in Gerrei, and can be reached through a pine-lined avenue that leads to the management building, accompanied by accommodation for managers, the canteen and the chemical laboratory.