Sassari, Palace of the Province

The building is part of the monumental layout of Piazza d'Italia, the most important in the nineteenth-century city. In the center stands the monument with the marble statue of Vittorio Emanuele II.
During the nineteenth century, numerous works and infrastructures were built that started Sassari to comply with the modernization process typical of those years. Following the unification of Italy, provincial palaces, headquarters of Prefectures, were built, which added offices, representative rooms and meeting rooms to the Prefect's home.
The building faces the NE side of the large quadrangular area of Piazza d'Italia, constituting its solemn scenographic backdrop. The architectural structure is still today the most significant and symbolically significant emergency in the square. Already in 1872, the Provincial Council had established a commission for the purchase of Palazzo Ducale or, alternatively, for the rough design of a building that, due to its decoration, size and convenience, could meet the needs of the Province. Not without controversy, the second hypothesis supported by the moderate party then in power and opposed by the progressive party, which called for greater austerity in public spending, prevailed. At the same time, the municipal administration, also with a moderate orientation, decided to transfer the area on the NE side of the Piazza d'Italia free of charge.
The assignment was entrusted to Cavalier Giovanni Borgnini, who pretended to be supported by engineer Eugenio Sironi, who ended up assuming the role of designer and construction manager, while the former was responsible for a supervisory role on the factory. The work lasted from 1873 until July 10, 1880, when the civic clock crowning the façade came into operation.
Externally, the building is set up according to Neo-Renaissance accents, with a slightly raised central body, punctuated on the upper floors by six gigantic Corinthian semicolumns that slope into pilasters, supporting the slight retreat of the lateral bodies. Overall, despite its adherence to fairly standardized academic styles, the building ranks both for the size and functionality of the spaces and, again, for the quality of the decorative interventions, among the best administrative buildings in Italy.
Between 1878 and 1882, Giuseppe Sciuti from Catania decorated the council hall, while the other representative rooms were entrusted, between 1877 and 1878, to the painters Giovanni Dancardi and Davide Dechiffer.
The fresco in the vault presents a wide and complex allegory of the history of Italy that unfolds from the dark primitive phase to encompass the luminous modern age. In this scenario, the figure of Vittorio Emanuele II stands out in apotheosis, who, by supporting the figure of liberated Italy, promotes progress, represented by a locomotive and the telegraph. The work as a whole represents an important example of historical verism from the second nineteenth century, which saw Sciuti as one of the main exponents.

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
F. Masala, Architecture from the Unification of Italy to the end of the 1900s. Nuoro, Ilisso, 2001, sheet 19.