Current Time in Sassari, Italy

Sassari is the second-largest city in Sardinia, Italy, and the principal center of the northern part of the island. With a population of approximately 127,000, it is the capital of the Province of Sassari and a major administrative, educational, and commercial hub that has been in constant competition and rivalry with the island's capital Cagliari for centuries. Situated inland on a limestone plateau at an elevation of around 225 meters, surrounded by productive agricultural land, Sassari is a city of considerable historical depth, strong civic traditions, an important university, and a distinguished roster of historical figures — including two Italian heads of state — who were born or raised within its walls.

Sassari was established in the twelfth century as a new urban center when the population of the older coastal Roman city of Turris Libisonis (Porto Torres) moved inland for greater security. It developed rapidly under the Giudicato of Torres, one of the four medieval Sardinian kingdoms, and then passed under Pisan, Genoese, and finally Aragonese-Spanish control in the fourteenth century. The Spanish period left a significant cultural and architectural mark on the city: the Cathedral of San Nicola, begun in the thirteenth century and completed in the seventeenth with the addition of a magnificent Spanish Baroque facade, is the principal monument of this era and one of the most elaborate Baroque church facades in Sardinia. The Fontana di Rosello, a Renaissance fountain built in 1606 in a hybrid Spanish-Sardinian style, is another legacy of this period and the city's most beloved civic monument, its four figures representing the four seasons.

The University of Sassari, founded in 1562 by the Jesuits, is one of the oldest in Italy and has been the intellectual anchor of the northern Sardinian region for four and a half centuries. It is a full comprehensive university with faculties in medicine, law, agriculture, veterinary medicine, and the humanities, and its approximately 14,000 students sustain a lively academic culture in the city. Several of Italy's most distinguished political figures are associated with Sassari: Francesco Cossiga, President of the Republic from 1985 to 1992, and Antonio Segni, President from 1962 to 1964, were both born here, and Enrico Berlinguer, the historic leader of the Italian Communist Party and one of the most important political figures of postwar Italy, was also a Sassarese.

The Museo Nazionale Sanna, located in Sassari, is one of the most important archaeological museums in Sardinia, housing an extensive collection of Nuragic bronzes, prehistoric ceramics, and Roman artifacts from the northern part of the island. The collection of Nuragic bronzetti — small bronze figurines of warriors, priests, and animals produced between 900 and 700 BC — is particularly significant. The Pinacoteca Nazionale di Sassari, in the Palazzo Giordano, displays Sardinian and mainland Italian painting from the medieval period to the twentieth century.

The Cavalcata Sarda, held each May, is one of Sardinia's most spectacular traditional festivals and one of the largest in Italy. It brings together folk groups, horseback riders, and musicians from dozens of Sardinian towns, all dressed in their traditional regional costumes — a vivid display of the extraordinary variety of Sardinian folk dress and the island's strong attachment to its cultural heritage. The procession through the streets of Sassari, watched by thousands of spectators, is one of the most colorful events in the Italian festival calendar.

Sassari is connected by rail to the island's main cities and to the ferry port of Golfo Aranci, and by road to Cagliari, Nuoro, and Alghero. The nearby Alghero-Fertilia Airport, about 30 kilometers west, serves an increasing number of European routes, making Sassari and the northern Sardinian coastline easily accessible for international visitors.

Sassari is a genuine Sardinian city — proud of its history, devoted to its traditions, and welcoming to visitors who seek a more authentic and less touristic face of this extraordinary island. Its university life, its historical monuments, and the spectacular surrounding landscape of northern Sardinia make it a rewarding destination for those who look beyond the beaches.