A journey through time

Bosa boasts a very ancient history.
Its origins go all the way back to the Nuragic period when Calameda — the daughter of the mythological king
Sardus Pater, eponymous god of the Nuragic Sardinian people — came to the Temo valley,
became fascinated by it and decided to stop and found a city that would be named after her.

But it was not the first: as the numerous burial caves and domus de janas that have come down to us tell us,
the territory of Bosa had already been inhabited in prehistoric and protohistoric times; there are also archaeological remains traceable to the Bronze Age and Nuragic civilization near Monte Furru and S'Abba Druche, as well as of the Phoenician-Punic settlement in the valley of Messerchimbe.

In Roman times, almost certainly during the early imperial age, Bosa (which then stood on the left bank of the river, near the present church of San Pietro extramuros) became a municipium with its own order of decurions and a college of four viries with jurisdictional powers and police functions.
 Thanks to the presence of the port of Terridi, protected from the mistral by Sa Sea Mountain, the Roman center experienced great development and prosperity.

We are only a recent episode in a long history
that began over two thousand years ago.

The Medieval Period

The Middle Ages of Bosa was characterized on the one hand by the flourishing of Byzantine culture
and on the other by the raids of Arab raiders from North Africa: this plague did not prevent it from being
the capital of the Curatoria of Planargia, bishopric and, before the Year 1000, saw the completion
of the cathedral dedicated to St. Peter. However, with the arrival of the Malaspina around the mid-1200s
and the building of the castle still clearly visible today, the population gradually began to move to the foot
of the fortification on the right bank of the river, going on to create what we know as the medieval quarter of Sa Costa. Over the centuries the urban core of Calameda disappeared.

In the early fourteenth century, the winds of war between the powerful Malaspina family and the Aragonese invaders
began to blow with increasing vigor: on November 2, 1308, Moruello, Corrado and Franceschino Malaspina
ceded the Bosa' castle to Giacomo II of Aragon, and a few years later the structure was entrusted to Pietro Ortis
with the approval of the Iberians and the Giudicato of Arborea.

Throughout the century the stronghold was at the center of daring plots and palace games because of its enormous strategic importance, changing hands several times between exponents of the two powers until the Battle of Sanluri in 1409 that decreed the final triumph of the Aragonese.
In 1328 Bosa became part of the extra iudicatum lands of Arborea and, a few decades later, the Arborean-Aragonese "alliance" tilted and Bosa came first under the control of the judges of Arborea: Ugone III and Eleonora of Arborea and then, from the first decade of the 1400s, under the direct control of the Crown of Aragon.
Under the reign of Aragon a mint also functioned in Bosa, issuing coins intended for local circulation.

The fertile period, decline and rebirth

In 1468, the castellan of Bosa Giovanni di Villamarí obtained the town as a perpetual feud, and soon Bosa,
by virtue of increasing trading privileges, became rich and prosperous, so much so that on September 30, 1499
it was named an imperial city by Ferdinand the Catholic.

However, the decline began in 1528 when the mouth of the Temo river was obstructed (and with it the harbor)
to prevent the landing of the French commanded by Andrea Doria.

The second half of the sixteenth century was marked by great changes, including cultural changes.
Capuchins arrived during the reign of Philip III of Spain (1598-1621) and founded several confraternities.

The early years of the seventeenth century, however, were ravaged by plague epidemics and violent fires,
and it is not surprising that during the reign of Charles II of Spain the Planargia fiefdom was by then depopulated and extremely poor.

Things improved during the eighteenth century when Bosa, which passed first to the Habsburgs of Austria
and then to the Savoy with the rest of the island — to found the great Kingdom of Sardinia —, gradually recovered
some importance.
 On May 4, 1807, by a decree of King Victor Emmanuel I, Bosa became the capital of a province, although in 1848, following the abolition of the provinces, it was included in the administrative division of Nuoro
(when, a decade later, the provinces were restored Bosa became part of the Province of Sassari until 1927, when it passed to the Province of Nuoro).

During the nineteenth century the town experienced a significant but slow population growth.
It developed various craft activities (particularly leather tanning) and modernized its old infrastructure
(creating, among other things, an aqueduct and a good sewage system).

The development, albeit in more modest terms, continued into the twentieth century.