Ploaghe consecration
1858 is the decisive year to Ploaghe consecration. Like Spano himself states: now and then I was putting in order in a Sardinian document I could achieve, back from XV century, which numbered the Niccolò Doria’s Customs Laws with the chronicle written by the historian Publian Francesco De Castro about the town of Publium, full of many news taken from two ancient Latin authors, Sernestus and Severinus, who lived the last times of Roman Republic. This fake chronicle, which is found inside the Paper Code n° XIII, has to deal with the delicate question about the so–called Arborea Papers which went round Sardinia between 1845 and 1866. They are codes, parchment, various documents, verses or prose, which were reproduced in the antique shops and, it seems, had been first written in Saint Rosalia monastery, in Cagliary, by quite mysterious people and reliable and intellectual men both from Piedmont and Sardinia, and finally sold by a friar from Oristano, father Cosimo Manca, who declared they where documents coming from the Archives of Arborea Giudicato in Oristano, that they had been saved because had been placed in a palace in front of Arborea square before a fire destroyed the Judge House, burning the whole archive.
Obviously, as soon as Spano could achieve this code, he could not believe his eyes. At last he could prove what he had always declared. The ancient Roman town of Publium is his beloved Ploaghe. He himself tells that, when a boy, during his holidays from University, which were the longest in Sardinia, he would go to Ploaghe and explore the territory: he would climb nuraghes, searching, many times together with his mother, looking for finds, hoping to find the same things they discovered in Turris Libisonis. So, through this document, the glorious tradition of Ploaghe would have had nothing to envy to the other city which had had a flourishing life during Roman Empire.
This code started with the sentence Patria mia charissima Publium. Civitas Publii. Memoria antique civitatis Publii que in rustico sermone dicebatur a plebe pluvaca o plovacensis. Moreover, the manuscript was signed by Franciscus de Castro Plovacs, which Spano interpreted as Plovacanus or Plovacensis.
So he could get evidence of the real existence of Publium but, moreover, the identification of this ancient Roman town with his beloved Ploaghe, since 1090 seat of Plovaca medieval diocese.
In this false chronicle de Castro described meticulously Ploaghe history. He tells that Plubium was a rich and lively Roman town, whose territory boundaries were three nuraghes: nuraghe Surzaga, nuraghe de Attentu and nuraghe de Planu. The town was also fortified, that is to say surrounded by walls and towers. It had three temples and an amphitheatre built, in the valley which lies down the hill where is nuraghe Attentu, by a Sardinian architect, Marco Peducio. Its farming and breeding cattle were rich and thriving, and it was famous above all because of the making of its different types of cow cheese, its butter, which Spano calls butirro, and which, due its quality, much better than the other made in other island areas, was required by Romans, who would vex Plubium cattle–breeders. Men were strong and brave, suitable for warfare. Someone studied scientific matters, someone else chose arts, others worked cloth, especially wool one, which they sold to Ilian people who, like Etruscans, preferred wool cloth than leather one.
Moreover, in the manuscript appear a lot of people, Arrio, Plubio, Plubicio, Sarra (some of them would later figure in Ploaghe place-names).
Unfortunately, even Spano believed with no reservations the manuscript was authentic. He thought so because of the large amount of Roman finds discovered in Ploaghe territory, near nuraghe Attentu, where, according to the chronicle, was set the old town of Plubium and near nuraghe Truvine, where it said there was the Roman suburb of Trabine. Nevertheless, we must say that surely even the forgers knew the many discoveries and old ruins in Ploaghe territory made by the scholar, and certainly basing on these facts they must have written down such a detailed history.
So in 1859 Spano published the manuscript in a monograph, and, later in 1863, as appendix to Sardinian Archaeological Bulletin.
Going back to archaeological matters, in the years he was printing the Bulletin, Spano gave his own collection of coins and medals to Cagliari Archaeological Museum, whose he became director in 1875.