Ales, Gramsci Square

The square is in the town of Ales, a diocesan center.
On May 1, 1977, the public space dedicated to Antonio Gramsci from his native town was inaugurated in Ales, through the transformation of the market square. The sculptor Giò Pomodoro, invited by the Friends of the Gramsci House in Milan, chose to create a communal and accessible space and not a celebratory monument, setting up a triangular plan for use with some symbolic elements, such as the fountain and the fireplace. The local population also participated in the work, involved in the choice of stone (Masullas limestone) and in the insertion of Trani stone for the engraved slab and benches, in a sort of union between different people. The central core is in the quadrangular hearth lowered from the level of the square, covered with red and black basalt pebbles, recovered with the restoration of a quarry in Mogoro. Pomodoro's intervention aroused a lot of controversy also because it lived once again as the usual example of cultural “colonization”, especially since in 1968 the municipal administration of Ales had already commissioned Costantino Nivola a monument. Despite this, the “Antonio Gramsci” plan of use has become over time a place perfectly integrated into the landscape.

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 (2001).

Bibliography by
F. Masala, Architecture from the Unification of Italy to the end of the 1900s. Nuoro, Ilisso, 2001, sheet 162.