History
The territory of Iglesias has signs that humans have been present since the Neolitic Age, as evidenced by findings in the hills that surround the city. Subsequently, Phoenicians, Punics and Romans came to this area attracted by the huge mineral wealth, their presence was mostly in the coastal areas.
However, it was Ugolino Della Gherardesca, a Doronatico dynasty Pisan lord, who founded the city of “Villa di Chiesa” (City of Churches) combining many mining villages. The first mention of the city dates back to 1272. That is when the first draft of the “Breve di Villa di Chiesa” was written; it was a municipal statute for mines, daily life and social management of the city.
In 1324, after a long siege and war honor, the city surrounded to Catalan Aragonese, started a long and little profitable Iberian supremacy in Sardinia, this ended in the XVIII century, when the island became a part of the Sardo Piemontese Kingdom, and at the time, the mining industrial interest increased again.
Mining concessions and several works grown in Iglesias, because of the agricultural crisis, they came into the Sulcitan area. The Iglesias mining district became one of the most important districts in Europe, attracting investors from all over the country.
The gold period lasted in the last part of the 1900, the low mining productivity and extraction increase of some minerals led to the progressive closure of wells and mining activities. Nowadays, the glorious mining past of Iglesias is shown on the touristic valorization of its mining industrial archeology.