San Pancrazio Space

The San Pancrazio Space is one of the exhibition venues of the National Museums of Cagliari.

Created in the structures of the bastion of San Pancrazio, it is now incorporated into the Citadel of Museums.

It houses the collection of stone material and coats of arms, which came to the Museum through acquisitions from private collections, donations, accidental discoveries and recoveries during demolitions or restorations. The finds, which are dated from the 13th century, tell the urban and social evolution of the city of Cagliari.

The bastion of San Pancrazio was built by order of the viceroy Don Joan Dusay between 1501 and 1503, in order to protect the northern gate of Cagliari from frontal artillery fire. This was the weak point of the fortification of the Castello district, as it lacked precipices and escarpments that would discourage possible sieges.

The coat of arms carved on the architrave of the entrance door shows the viceroy's insignia, the three mullets.

The rapid evolution of military techniques and firearms soon made the concept of this defensive system obsolete. Its construction characteristics - the structure dug into the rock, the not very functional loopholes, the absence of sloping walls and gunnels - aroused criticism from the military engineers of the time.

From the end of the 17th century the bastion underwent various modifications. First, the door of Altamira was opened, which interrupted the direct passage from the courtyard of the tower of San Pancrazio inside the bastion. Subsequently its interior was adapted into a military prison and in 1824 it became the hospital for prison inmates.

In 1897 the complex was decommissioned by the prison administration to pass to the care of the Ministry of Public Education, Fine Arts branch. For many years it was used as a deposit of materials from the excavations of the Archaeological Superintendency until the restorations of the 1990s, which allowed use as an exhibition venue.