Historical introduction
Examining the town of Ploaghe is particularly interesting since it allows to follow developing urbanism within three centuries: XVII, XVIII, XIX.
As far as the first two centuries are concerned, documents are exclusively represented by paper material (notary deeds, legacies) kept in the Ploaghe Parish Archives, while on the other hand, about the third, they are formed by the early maps of Regno Sardo Piemontese and by some deeds and documents kept in the Historical Archives of Ploaghe.
In middle-ages time, the town was set on the slope of Saint Mathew volcanic hill and its boundaries were the nurake de sa Surzaga, now disappeared, which was in Zaccaria valley and whose foundation traces are nowadays visible in the side near the rector palace; the nurake de Planu (nuraghe Don Micheli) and the nurake de Athentu (nuraghe Attentu).
People were settled around Sanctu Petru church, because of Funtana Manna, which, together with Funtana Ena and Domus Maiore, was the water supply of the ancient village. The houses of the ancient settlers distinguished from the church, besides the architectural features peculiar of a religious structure, for their building techniques. Actually, houses were built with un-squared stones joined with mud and straw. There were, in fact, the maistros de ludu, bricklayer skilled in building houses with stones and mud. An area of territory called fundamentu, which was divided in paberiles, where were common lands exploited by town inhabitants, and large estates, depended on the village. The town territory included private properties too: the domo and the domestia.
The domo was a bunch of rural houses which fields of cereals, orchards, vineyards, cane-brakes and pastures (saltus) depended on. The saltu included mountainous wooded lands where they bred cattle in the open and freely picked up fruits and wood. There were mostly bushes and oaks. Sometimes the saltus were partially cleared and cultivated; other times, when fenced, they where called masonius or curtes, little farms where servants, who lived in plain huts built up with branches, cultivated land and bred cattle, that means they took care of it and worked its milk. The producing activities, thus, were aimed to satisfy life’s primary and simplest needs. The land, forced to give most of the goods the village needed, was worked with little help of draught animals and with very primitive equipment.
The domestia was a smaller farm formed only by fields of cereals.
Generally, fenced lands were called cuniados, and they were to be cultivated as vineyards, olive-groves and orchards with mostly fig-trees, walnuts, apple and citron-trees. Open lands, on the other hand, were cultivated with cereals, barley and wheat, and they were lands de agrile, even called aradorias if exploited with “rotation” (one year fallow and the following cultivated), and semidas lands if they cultivated anything on it.
Five road branched off the town: bia de Plovake a Anglona, bia de Plovake a Agustana, bia de Plovake a Salvennor, bia de Plovake a Gisarclu e a Ardar, bia de Plovake a Thatari.