Cagliari, Legion of the Carabinieri

The building covers a large area overlooking Sonnino and Deledda streets with a curvilinear pattern, assuming the role of a monumental backdrop to the modest Piazza Gramsci in front.
The work was carried out by the Public Works Authority on a project entrusted to the engineers Angelo Binagli and Flavio Scano. The work carried out by the Ferrobeton company began at the end of 1930 and the building was inaugurated on April 21, 1933, although not completely finished.
The large building occupies an almost pentagonal area and stands out for its redundant and rhetorical forms, even within a coherent formal language. The two wings on the road fronts are connected by a curvilinear body crossed at full height by four gigantic Tuscan semi-columns, which support a frame with teeth, developed along all the elevations. Above, in the axis with the half-columns, there are four colossal bronze sculptures depicting virile nudes symbolizing “The Fascist Age, Justice, New Youth, Duty”, works by the sculptor Albino Manca; among them, on the back wall, circular oculi and bas-reliefs are always in bronze. The whole ends with an annoyance that follows the curvilinear course of the architectural body with a toothed frame surmounted by four soaring obelisks.
The side parts are underlined by piles always of giant order, often joined two by two, which contain overlapping windows and, on the lower level, a fake ashlar according to mannerist stylistic features. At the top, the coats of arms and mottos of the Arma are visible in Latin and Italian: “Pro Patria Contra Omnes — Pro Me Contra Neminem”; “Usi obbedir Tacendo Calendo e Tacendo Morir”.

Bibliography by
E. Gessa Maggipinto-M. Vincis, “Archival Sources”, in Cagliari Historic Districts. Villanova, Cinisello Balsamo, A. Pizzi, 1991, p. 183;
F. Masala, “The neighborhood and its history”, in Cagliari Historic Districts. Villanova, Cinisello Balsamo, A. Pizzi, 1991, pp. 54, 58;
M. Pintus, “Architectures”, historic districts in Cagliari. Villanova, Cinisello Balsamo, A. Pizzi, 1991, p. 141;
G. Loddo, Cagliari. Architecture from 1900 to 1945, Cagliari, Coedisar, 1999, p. 96;
F. Masala, Architecture from the Unification of Italy to the End of the 20th Century. Nuoro, Ilisso, 2001, sheet 65.