Castles of Sardinia

Between existing and disappeared there are 82 castles in Sardinia, all built during the Middle Ages. Some date back to the Byzantine period, but most of them were built during the Giudicati period and the della Gherardesca, Malaspina and Doria domination, especially from the second half of the 13th century onwards.
Realized mainly for strategic-military purposes, they had the function of supervising the judicial borders and the most important communication routes. With the unification of Sardinia under the Aragonese their importance faded away and over time almost all of them went into ruin.