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 remained a prisoner at Bologna until his death. After this the Pisan supremacy of the island seems to have become more of a reality, but Arborea remained independent, and after the defeat of the Pisans by the Genoese at the naval battle of Meloria in 1284 they were obliged to surrender Sassari and Logudoro to Genoa. In 1297 Boniface VIII. invested James II., the king of Aragon, with Sardinia; but it was not until 1323 that he attempted its conquest, nor imtil 1326 that the Pisans were finally driven out of Cagliari, which they had fortified in 1305–1307 by the construction of the Torre di S. Pancrazio and the Torre dell' Elefante, and which became the seat of the Aragonese government. To the Pisan period belong a number of fine Romanesque churches, among which may be specially mentioned those of Ardara, S. Giusta near Oristano, La Trinità di Saccargia and Tratalias (see D. Scano, op. cit. infra).

The Aragonese enjoyed at first the assistance of the giudici of Arborea, who had remained in power; but in 1352 war broke out between Mariano IV. and the Aragonese, and was carried on by his daughter Eleonora, wife of Brancaleone Doria of Genoa, until her death in 1403. Peter IV. had meanwhile in 1355 called together the Cortes (parliament)

of the three estates (the nobles, the clergy and the representatives of the towns) for the first time after the model of Aragon. After 1403 the Aragonese became masters of Arborea also. The title of giudice was abolished and a feudal marquisate substituted. The carta de logu (del luogo) or code of laws issued by her was in 1421 extended to the whole island by the cortes under the presidency of Alphonso V., who visited Sardinia in that year. In 1478 the marquisate of Oristano was suppressed, and henceforth the island was governed by Spanish viceroys with the feudal régime of the great nobles under them, the Cortes being convoked once every ten years. Many of the churches show characteristic Spanish Late Gothic architecture which survived until a comparatively recent period. The Renaisance had little or no influence on Sardinian architecture and culture.

The island remained a Spanish province until the War of the Spanish Succession, when in 1708 Cagliari capitulated to an English fleet, and the island became Austrian; the status quo was confirmed by the peace of Utrecht in 1713. In 1717, however, Cardinal Alberoni retook Cagliari for Spain; but this state of things was short-lived, for

in 1720, by the treaty of London, Sardinia passed in exchange for Sicily to the dukes of Savoy, to whom it brought the royal title. The population was at that time a little over 300,000; public security and education were alike lacking, and there were considerable animosities between different parts of the island. Matters improved considerably under Charles Emmanuel III., in whose reign of forty-three years (1730–1773) the prosperity of the island was much increased. The French attacks of 1792–1793 were repelled by the inhabitants, Cagliari being unsuccessfully bombarded by the French fleet, and the refusal by Victor Amadeus III. to grant them certain privileges promised in consideration of their bravery led to the revolution of 1794–1796. In 1799 Charles Emmanuel IV. of Savoy took refuge in Cagliari after his expulsion by the French, but soon returned to Italy. In 1802 he abdicated in favour of his brother Victor Emmanuel I., who in 1806 returned to Cagliari and remained there until 1814, when he retired, leaving his brother, Carlo Felice, as Viceroy. Carlo was successful in repressing brigands, but had to deal with much distress from famine. In 1821 he became king of Savoy by the abdication of his brother, and the construction of the highroad from Cagliari to Porto Torres was begun (not without opposition on the part of the inhabitants) in 1822. Feudalism was abolished in 1836, and in 1848 complete political union with Piedmont was granted, the viceregal government being suppressed, and the island being divided into three divisions of which Cagliari, Sassari and Nuoro were the capitals. General A. La Marmora was appointed royal commissioner to supervise the transformation to the new régime.

SARDIS, more correctly, the capital of the ancient kingdom of Lydia, the seat of a conventus under the Roman Empire, and the metropolis of the province Lydia in later Roman and Byzantine times, was situated in the middle Hermus valley, at the foot of Mt. Tmolus, a steep and lofty spur of which formed the citadel. It was about 2 m. S. of the Hermus. The earliest reference to Sardis is in the Persae of Aeschylus (472 ); in the Iliad the name Hydé seems to be given to the city of the Maeonian (i.e. Lydian) chiefs, and in later times Hydé was said to be the older name of Sardis, or the name of its citadel. It is, however, more probable that Sardis was not the original capital of the Maeonians, but that it became so amid the changes which produced the powerful Lydian empire of the 8th century The city was captured by the Cimmerians in the 7th century, by the Persians and by the Athenians in the 6th, and by Antiochus the Great at the end of the 3rd century. Once at least, under the emperor Tiberius, in 17, it was destroyed by an earthquake; but it was always rebuilt, and was one of the great cities of western Asia Minor till the later Byzantine time. As one of the Seven Churches of Asia, it was addressed by the author of the Apocalypse in terms which seem to imply that its population was notoriously soft and fainthearted. Its importance was due, first to its military strength, secondly to its situation on an important highway leading from the interior to the Aegean coast, and thirdly to its commanding the wide and fertile plain of the Hermus.

The early Lydian kingdom was far advanced in the industrial arts (see ), and Sardis was the chief seat of its manufactures. The most important of these trades was the manufacture and dyeing of delicate woollen stuffs and carpets. The statement that the little stream Pactolus which flowed through the market-place rolled over golden sands is probably little more than a metaphor, due to the wealth of the city to which the Greeks of the 6th century resorted for supplies of gold; but trade and the organization of commerce were the real sources of this wealth. After Constantinople became the capital of the East a new road system grew up connecting the provinces with the capital. Sardis then lay rather apart from the great lines of communication and lost some of its importance. It still, however, retained its titular supremacy and continued to be the seat of the metropolitan bishop of the province of Lydia, formed in 295. It is enumerated as third, after Ephesus and Smyrna, in the list of cities of the Thracesian thema given by Constantine Porphyrogenitus in the 10th century; but in the actual history of the next four centuries it plays a part very inferior to Magnesia ad Sipylum and Philadelphia (see ), which have retained their pre-eminence in the district. The Hermus valley began to suffer from the inroads of the Seljuk Turks about the end of the 11th century; but the successes of the Greek general Philocales in 1118 relieved the district for the time, and the ability of the Comneni, together with the gradual decay of the Seljuk power, retained it in the Byzantine dominions. The country round Sardis was frequently ravaged both by Christians and by Turks during the 13th century. Soon after 1301 the Seljuk amirs overran the whole of the Hermus and Cayster valleys, and a fort on the citadel of Sardis was handed over to