The mine is located in a vast wooded area.
The great metal mine for lead, silver and zinc has long represented one of the most important production plants in Italy and is still one of the most characteristic mining sites in Sardinia.
It has been developed by successive aggregations, saturating the areas arranged at different levels of the slope, according to the usual logic of the progressive use of the most suitable veins.
The oldest installations are the two main wells (Vittorio Emanuele II, 1869, and Quintino Sella, 1874), which, despite their industrial purpose, show a classically derived architecture with gables, pilasters and frames. The buildings that have gradually suffocated these wells are an interesting trace of the technological and productive progress of the mine.
In the housing complex, Palazzo Bellavista stands out, headquarters of the management, built in 1865-66 by the engineer Adolfo Pellegrini, director of the mine. In a prominent and once isolated position, it has a U-shaped plan, with a high plinth for the windows on the ground floor and a series of pilasters, which frame the openings of the main floor, with an obvious reference to classic-style courtly models. At the back, a terraced hemicycle garden, embellished with exotic essences such as palm trees, allows a magnificent view of the valley below.
Green also envelops homes for managers and employees, isolated further upstream, while according to hierarchical principles recurring in all the mines, towards the state road coming from Iglesias, downstream the working-class houses are arranged in parallel rows in a row in a row.
At an intermediate level, the entrance square also provides the public face of the mining company, with the bust of Carlo Baudi di Vesme (1877) and service buildings: in addition to the old hospital, the church, the kindergarten, the school, all meeting criteria of simplicity and rationality, built between the two world wars. The most unique is the church, inaugurated in 1945, a simple and geometric structure, which was actually born from the transformation of the Casa del Fascio (1936) with the removal of some parts and the addition of a bell tower and a geometric tympanum.
The last major intervention in Monteponi is the guesthouse, where an entire wall of the vast hall is decorated with a fresco by Aligi Sassu, built in 1950 and restored in 1997. The painting shows the naked workers, like the composition, as opposed to the galleries that welcome modern miners, dominated by the industrial landscape.
Downstream, across the state road, since the twenties of the twentieth century, Monteponi Scalo has been established with the sulfuric acid plant, made of reinforced concrete and bricks. Upstream, still along the SS 126, you can see the suggestive accumulation of red sludge, now bound by the Superintendence for Environmental Heritage of Cagliari, deriving from the waste from the electrolytic treatment of zinc, coming from the mine above.
The former warehouses of the Monteponi Mine house the Igea Spa Historical Mining Archive, which can be visited by appointment.

History of studies
The Iglesias mining plants are mentioned in several works on industrial archeology in Sardinia.

Bibliography
Monteponi Society. Centenary 1850-1950, Turin, 1950;
S. Mezzolani-A. Simoncini, Sardinia to save. Landscapes and architecture of mines, Nuoro, Sardo Photographic Archive, 1993, pp. 194-212;
M.L. Frongia, “Mining work in twentieth-century Sardinian painting”, in Man and Mines in Sardinia, edited by T.K. Kirova, Cagliari, Edizioni della Torre, 1993, pp. 166-167;
F. Masala, “Mining architecture in Sardinia between revivals and eclecticism”, in Man and Mines in Sardinia, edited by T.K. Kirova, Cagliari, Edizioni della Torre, 1993, pp. 166-167; F. Masala, “Mining settlements.
Forms, architectures, problems”, in Founding Cities in Sardinia, edited by A. Lino, Cagliari, Cuec, 1998, pp. 43-45;
F. Masala, Architecture from the Unification of Italy to the End of the 20th Century. Nuoro, Ilisso, 2001, page 48;
Eclecticism and mining. European reflections in Sardinian architecture and society between the 19th and 20th centuries, exhibition catalog, curated by M.B. Lai-P. Olive-G. Usai, MiBAC [2004], pp. 50-59.

How to get there
The Monteponi mine can be reached from Via Cattaneo, at the end of the town of Iglesias, along the SS 126. An internal road runs along some buildings including the guesthouse before reaching a vast square where there are both service buildings and the entrance to the mine.