History of Mining in Sardinia - After Italian Unification

After Italian Unification

From 1865 onward lead and silver, by then the most extracted minerals on the island, were added to a third one, zinc, and in fact that year in the mine of Malfidano in Bugerru, the famous "calamine" (zinc silicates) were found. About 1868 dynamite was introduced in Italy, invented the year before by the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel. Within a short time this invention revolutionised the mining techniques allowing the operation at relatively low costs even in humid yards. Meanwhile the uneasiness of Sardinia within the recently constituted Italian State was growing up. In 1867 Sardinian members of parliament asked Prime Minister Bettino Ricasoli for a greater commitment of the State to alleviate poverty conditions of the people on the island. In April 1868 the social malaise caused in Nuoro big unrest: the whole population raised cries shouting su connottu! su connottu! against the sale of the State-owned grounds. After that a parliamentary inquiry commission headed by Agostino Depretis was constituted, of which even the Piedmontese member of parliament Quintino Sella was a member. Sella, a mining engineer, wrote down a report on the conditions of mining industry in Sardinia, published only in 1871, that constituted a document of extraordinary importance for the knowledge of the topic. During a journey that lasted 18 days Sella, accompanied by the engineer Eugenio Marchese, manager of the mining district of Sardinia, visited the main mines and the metal-working factories of the island.

From his report the growing importance of the knowledge of the topic emerged within the Italian economy. In 1868-1869 in Sardinian mines there were 9,171 employees, almost three times as much as in 1860. In fact, following the extension to Sardinia of the mining act of 1840 of Piedmont and its following modification of 1859 in order to be more favourable for mining entrepreneurs, a swift development of researches and mining, an increase in production and employed hands was recorded. In 1870 the permits for research, that were 83 by the end of 1861 increased to 420 and the concessions from 16 to 32, The extracted mineral increased from 9,379,800 kilograms in 1860 to 127,924,600 kilograms in 1868 while its value got five times as high achieving in 1868-1869 the amount of £ 13.464.780.

From Sella's report it also comes out that, in order to ease the transportation of mineral to the landing points, up to 1870 the mining societies had built about 30 kilometers of railways and 181 kilometers of land roads.

The steady development of mining industry led to the flow of technicians (engineers and geologists) and board employees from other regions of the kingdom. Because of the poor level of education and technical preparation of Sardinian hands, even the majority of qualified hands employed in mines came from the continent. Most of times the management of mining societies that operated on the island was set on criteria that could have been quietly defined as colonial; that's why very often these were confined to the exploitation of the richest parts of mined veins, ranferring then out of Sardinia the mined material that was processed on plants located on the continent. The large proceeds coming from the exploitation of Sardinian mines were not invested again on the spot unless to ease the operation of the company. Sella's inquiry did not reveal the economic treatment inequities between Sardinian miners and those with a continental origin, not to mention the need to found a school for foundrimen and mining managers in Iglesias. The report ended with the recommendations that more capital should be invested to improve mining industry, first of all the emergency of building a road network between mines and of completing railways. The need of carrying out and developing an adequate telegraph communication network was also highlighted: Sella points out that the main mining companies demanded to be able to build, at own expense, new telegraph lines in order to make communications faster. Such purpose was though made useless by the act that guaranteed the State the monopoly in the building of these important structures.

In 1872 the seat of the Sardinian Mining District was moved from Cagliari to Iglesias.

The year before, in 1871 the Italian mining activity had known the birth of a new industry. With the ultimate discover and the beginning of mining, of silver-bearing vein of Saarabus, even in Italy the production of silvery minerals was started off. A new production cycle lasting about forty years had begun.

Within a short period from fifteen tons of mined minerals in 1871, the year in which the discovery of the Mine of Monte Narba was declared, 2000 average tons a year were achieved and produced within the ten years between 1880 and 1890, that Rolandi defined as "silvery ten-year-span-of-time", in which productions reached the value of two millions lire. From the three mines that were constituted on the ore body in 1871, they increased to ten within twenty years to decrease later in order to become only one when it came to close it for good. In Sarrabus it came to a real quest for silver: together with big societies, such as the Society of Lanusei and the society of Monteponi, tenths and tenths of extemporised diggers of valuable metals showed hundreds of demands of permits to carry out mineral searches on the territories of the towns of Muravera, Villaputzu and, particularly, of San Vito. In 1851 the Genuese company "Unione Sulcis e Sarrabus" acquired the research permits in the area of Monte Narba, in the comune of San Vito. In 1885 the French engineer Leon Goüin founded in Genua the "Società Tacconis-Sarrabus" for the exploitation of Tacconis mine. In 1888 Goüin himself constituted in Paris the "Societè des mines de Rio Ollastu". In its most flourishing period the ore body of the Sarrabus employed up to 1500 workers, distributed among the mines of Masaloni, Giovanni Bonu, Monte Narba, Per'Arba, Baccu Arrodas, Tuviois, S'erra e S'Ilixi and Nicola Secci. Just to have a more precise idea of the quality value of the silver ore body of the Sarrabus we can say that, while in the rest of the world the average silver revenue for 100 kilograms of lead was swaying around 200/300 grams, in the body of the Sarrabus we achieved an average of 1 kilogram for 100 kilograms. In Baccu Arrodas the assays were much higher.

In the 1930's there was extensive emigration from the mainland during the Fascist government when people from Veneto but also from Marche, Abruzzo and Sicily came to Sardinia to populate the new mining towns founded in the Sulcis-Iglesiente region such as Carbonia and Cortoghiana.

The Geomineral Park of Sardinia, founded in 1989, and supported by UNESCO, today preserves the ancient mines and the ex mining villages that are become examples of industrial archeology.