Interconnections Between Urban and Rural Phonosphere in Savoyard Sardinia

This chapter focuses on the historical urban phonosphere in Sardinia during a period that roughly coincides with the Kingdom of Savoy-Sardinia (1720–1861). We base our analysis on the following sources: two chronicles of celebratory events related to royal weddings held in Cagliari in 1722 and 1750; the account of a French officer’s journey to Sardinia in the first half of the nineteenth century; and the entries on the island in the main statistical and historical dictionary of the territories of the King of Sardinia. By comparing these sources, we show that the cultural specificity of the geographical and historical conditions of the island left its mark on the phonosphere. We argue that, in order to understand the historical urban phonosphere in this context, we must widen the field of observation to include the interconnections between urban and rural worlds. Furthermore, the phonosphere must be understood in the light of the socio-political changes that took place in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which resulted in Sardinia’s gradual transition from the Iberian to the Italian cultural orbit.