Cagliari, Civil Hospital

The Civil Hospital of Cagliari is one of the most interesting 19th century Italian architecture.
The project was carried out by the renowned Cagliari architect Gaetano Cima (1805-1878).
In 1841, the city authorities established, in compliance with the legislation then in force, where the new construction should have been built. The choice fell on an area in the Palabanda area, far from the city center, between the Botanical Garden and the Via del Monte (now Via Ospedale).
The project, developed in 1842, included an architecturally valid building, rationally conceived and responding to the functional character that the destination entailed. The first stone was laid in 1844, and just four years later, in 1848, the first arms could already be used. To meet the needs of isolation and at the same time easy accessibility, the building was built in an elevated place, at the meeting point between the Stampace district and the O side of Castello, however, not far from Piazza Yenne, the nerve center of city activities.
The façade, with a neoclassical imprint, develops along a straight axis and is punctuated by three front bodies, one central and two lateral at the ends of the arms. The central entrance is crossed by a single giant order of six groovless Doric columns 10 m high and surmounted by an attic. The rest of the façade is organized in two orders separated by a continuous frame; a theory of quadrangular windows opens up on both. The succession of windows and the marcapian frame give the entire façade a horizontal and static trend, just moved by the advanced bodies.
The plant is radio-shaped, with buildings starting from a semicircular central core, in order to obtain an independent arrangement of the departments, at the same time intercommunicating. In this way, those characteristics of functionality fundamental to a modernly understood hospital structure were fulfilled. The connections of the buildings form four courtyards with an elongated hexagonal plan; an additional courtyard is located inside the semicircular body from which the five radial bodies branch out. The pivot behind the development of the entire radiator pattern consists of the domed roundabout, which is accessed through the atrium of the main entrance.
During the design phase first, and then construction, the ornamental element was not overlooked, on the outside, in the designs of the gates and windows, as well as on the inside, in the decorative motifs of the cast iron railings of the two main stairs.
Finally, it should be noted that this construction, which can be considered Gaetano Cima's masterpiece, was - as art and architecture historians have noted several times - in perfect relevance compared to the most advanced architectures of its time, in America and Europe.

History of studies
The hospital is the subject of a summary fact sheet in Salvatore Naitza's volume on late-seventeenth-century and purist architecture (1992).

Bibliography by
S. Lissia, “Gaetano Cima”, in Studi Sardi, IX, 1950, pp. 376-392;
B. Virdis, “Neoclassical architecture in southern Sardinia”, in Proceedings of the XIII Congress on the History of Architecture. Sardinia, I, Rome, 1966, pp. 331-334;
R. Serra, “The Civil Hospital”, in Almanacco di Cagliari, 1977, without pages;
R. Serra, “The purist pencil. One Hundred Years After the Death of Gaetano Cima”, in Almanacco di Cagliari, 1979, without pages;
A. Del Panta, An Architect and His City. The work of Gaetano Cima (1805-1878) in the map of the Municipal Archives of Cagliari, Cagliari, Edizioni della Torre, 1983;
S. Naitza, Architecture from the late 17th century to purist classicism. Nuoro, Ilisso, 1992, page 85;
M. Pintus, “Architectures”, in Cagliari Historic Districts. Stampace, Cinisello Balsamo, 1995, pp. 83-160.