Ales - Italy

Ales (OR)

Sardinia (Italy)

Small town in central Sardinia, the seat of Bishop Giulio II by decree of 8 December 1503, that unified between them and the dioceses of Usellus Terralba (first bishop of Ales was Giovanni Sanna, appointed on 01.18.1507, on the death of Bishops Diocese of the two previous).
The country is renowned internationally for being the birthplace of Antonio Gramsci.
Located at the foot of Mount Arci of a natural depression crossed by a river (now piped), has always played a decisive role in the economy of Marmilla hosting schools, locations of important public and private police force and various offices.
It 's probably the smallest venue of Italy with an Episcopal Cathedral built at the behest of the Countess of Quirra Violante Carroç in his will that, in addition to the large sum of 5,000 lire, gave extensive guidance on how constructive and, above all, ordered to draw on his other income for the work was completed.
What spurred the Countess in this undertaking seems not only been willing to give the right prestige to his possessions, but the attempt to repair the fault on her part in ordering the execution of the chaplain Bonorsoli Giovanni Castangia, whose only guilt was not returned to the morbid attentions that addressed the Countess.
For this act was first imprisoned and Violante deprived of all his possessions before being acquitted by King Ferdinand II.
The Cathedral was destroyed by fire in the late sixteenth century, the matrix that exists today, in Baroque style, from the days of Bishop Didaco Cugia, Bishop alerese from April 10, 1648, unconfirmed sources say that already the first cathedral of St. Peter's was built on the ruins of an ancient sacred temple of which the origins are unknown.
Local legends tell of a tunnel that would connect the Aragonese Castle of Carroz with the basement of the Cathedral, guarded by the infamous "moss Maceda," huge insect continues to guard the treasures hidden in the bowels of the hill Barumele.
The town of Ales is full of legends of the castle, the cathedral and of the archaeological area of Prabanta, holds a special charm to the theory of Xavier Guichard french philologist who in his "Eleusis Alesia" (1936), the origins of the names of ancient places Europe, concluded that all the place names are derived from three basic roots: Burgus, Antium and Alesia, the latter had the distinction of never having been assigned to a settlement founded in historical time.
In the form dating back to Greek Eleusis pre-Homeric times, the Indo-European Ales, Alis and Alles, meaning "meeting place".
Considering all the areas identified Guichard came to the conclusion that all the places that had this root had the same morphological characteristics: low hills with a river at the base, and mineral water springs, so the sites were chosen based on specific emanations of force, and, quite particular, all these centers are connected by true "geodesic lines."