{"id":3950,"date":"2026-02-02T11:01:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T11:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/castiadasturismo.com\/senza-categoria\/the-old-prisons-of-castiadas\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T22:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T22:58:09","slug":"the-old-prisons-of-castiadas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/castiadasturismo.com\/en\/discover-castiadas\/the-old-prisons-of-castiadas\/","title":{"rendered":"The Old Prisons of Castiadas"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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The Old Prisons of Castiadas<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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It was summer when they landed at Porto Sinzias, on the southeastern coast of Sardinia. To be more precise, it was August 11, 1875.
Back then, the beaches were uninhabited, quite different from how the coastline looks today. The boat carried thirty inmates and seven prison guards. Led by Cavaliere Eugenio Cicognani, they made their way inland with great difficulty, given the dense vegetation and the total lack of paths.
The territory must have appeared wild and untouched. The Inspector General of Prisons’ goal was to establish an initial settlement, reclaiming and restoring land that had been uninhabited for centuries\u2014350 years to be exact. More inmates soon arrived to help with the reclamation and construction work; records show that after the second year, there were more than three hundred convicts in the area, all with previous experience in construction. In 1877, seven km from the landing site, the prisoners’ residence was established.
It was located on the Praidis promontory<\/strong>, between two streams, Guttur Frascu<\/strong> and Baccu sa Figu<\/strong>. Soon, a carpentry shop, blacksmith workshops, a joinery, and an infirmary were up and running. Inside the main structure, besides the cells and quarters for the guards, there was a pharmacy, a first-aid station, and even a post office and a telephone station. In the unhealthiest areas that hadn’t been reclaimed yet, peripheral outposts were built\u2014wooden houses designed to hold no more than ten inmates. <\/p>

Interestingly, fine wire mesh was placed on the windows to prevent the passage of deadly mosquitoes. There were ten outposts, which not only allowed for food self-sufficiency but also created a production surplus for trade. The main crops were vineyards, citrus groves, wheat, cereals, and legumes. The dense forests were partially thinned out and used for charcoal production. <\/p>

It is estimated that in 1918, despite inmate deaths caused by malaria and the flu, charcoal production reached 1,600 quintals, and this threshold would be exceeded in the following years. At the beginning of the 20th century, about eight hundred inmates lived in the prisons, which by then had become a self-sufficient entity. Inmates had to support themselves through their own work, which proved to be one of the most effective methods for their subsequent reintegration into society. Only the most disciplined inmates had the chance to work outdoors in the fields, while others served their sentences inside the prison. And according to records, it must have been a hellish life. The Penal Colony finally ceased to exist only in 1956. <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Old Prisons of Castiadas It was summer when they landed at Porto Sinzias, on the southeastern coast of Sardinia. To be more precise, it was August 11, 1875.Back then, the beaches were uninhabited, quite different from how the coastline looks today. The boat carried thirty inmates and seven prison guards. Led by Cavaliere Eugenio […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3954,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-discover-castiadas","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/castiadasturismo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/castiadasturismo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/castiadasturismo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/castiadasturismo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/castiadasturismo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3950"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/castiadasturismo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3957,"href":"https:\/\/castiadasturismo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3950\/revisions\/3957"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/castiadasturismo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/castiadasturismo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/castiadasturismo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/castiadasturismo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}