Orgosolo is a village of 4,000 inhabitants in the Barbagia region of central Sardinia, 17km south of Nuoro, at 650 metres altitude in the Gennargentu massif. It is the most politically charged village in Italy. Beginning in 1969, when a group of students and a teacher named Francesco del Casino painted a mural on a wall to mark the anniversary of the resistance - Orgosolo has accumulated more than 150 murals covering the facades of houses, schools, and public buildings throughout the village. The subjects: the Palestinian intifada, the US bombing of Vietnam, the Sardinian banditry tradition and its social causes, the exploitation of the Sardinian interior by mainland Italian capitalism, the Korean War, apartheid, Che Guevara, Antonio Gramsci. The murals of Orgosolo constitute the most coherent body of political street art in Europe, painted over more than five decades by generations of local and visiting artists, forming a visual encyclopedia of left-wing anti-imperialist thought that has never been sanitized, never been made into a tourist spectacle, and never been softened for external consumption.
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What the Murals Depict
The murals of Orgosolo fall into several thematic categories. The oldest (1969-1975) focus on Sardinian issues: the expropriation of communal land for military use (the military zone of Pratobello, contested by Orgosolo's residents in 1969 in one of the most significant popular uprisings in postwar Sardinia), the condition of Sardinian shepherds, the structural poverty of the Barbagia interior. The 1970s-1980s murals expand to international solidarity. Palestine, Chile after Pinochet, South Africa, Vietnam. The 1990s-2000s add new subjects: the first Gulf War, the wars in ex-Yugoslavia, the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas. The most recent murals address climate change, migration, and global inequality. The sequence of subjects maps the concerns of the Italian radical left across five decades with a consistency and specificity that no political archive achieves as vividly. You walk through the village and read 50 years of history on the walls.
How to Visit Orgosolo
The murals of Orgosolo are spread throughout the village, there is no defined route, no entrance ticket, no guided tour required. Walk in from the main road, take any street, and the murals begin immediately. A complete circuit of the main streets takes 1.5-2 hours. The tourist office in the main piazza has a free map indicating the major murals. The village itself, stone houses, narrow lanes, the smell of wood fires in winter, the silence of a Barbagia village that empties daily as people go to their fields and flocks, has the atmosphere of a place that doesn't particularly need visitors and isn't modified by their presence.
Questions About the Orgosolo Murals
How do I get to Orgosolo?
By car from Nuoro: 17km south on the SP22, approximately 25 minutes. From Cagliari: 170km, 2h30. No direct bus service, the area is served by ARST regional buses from Nuoro but frequencies are low. A car is practical for visiting Orgosolo and the surrounding Barbagia.
Is Orgosolo safe to visit?
Completely. The village's reputation for banditry (the Barbagia was the most active area of the Sardinian banditry phenomenon that peaked in the 1960s-70s) is historical rather than current. Orgosolo today is a quiet mountain village. The murals are a cultural attraction, the locals are accustomed to visitors who come to see them, and the reception is hospitable in the reserved Barbagia manner.
Who painted the Orgosolo murals?
The first murals were painted in 1969 by Francesco del Casino, a teacher originally from Siena who was working in Orgosolo. Next murals were added by local artists, visiting artists from mainland Italy and internationally, groups of students, and collectives. There is no single artistic style, the murals range from naive political illustration to sophisticated mural painting, but a consistent political vision connects them. Del Casino continued to paint in Orgosolo for decades. His work remains the most technically accomplished in the village.
What else is near Orgosolo?
The Barbagia interior: the Supramonte massif (limestone plateau with deep gorges, the Gorropu canyon is the deepest in Europe), the nuraghe of the area, the Lago di Gusana. Nuoro (17km) has the Museo Etnografico Sardo (the most important ethnographic museum in Sardinia) and the Museo Deleddiano (dedicated to Grazia Deledda, Nobel Prize for Literature 1926, born in Nuoro). The Barbagia agriturismo (farm stay) circuit, working farms that serve traditional Barbagia food (su porceddu, il roast suckling pig. Malloreddus, the Sardinian gnocchi), is excellent in the area.
Curiosità su Orgosolo
La rivolta di Pratobello (1969) che scatenò il ciclo dei murales di Orgosolo è uno degli episodi più significativi della storia politica sarda del dopoguerra. Il Ministero della Difesa italiano aveva pianificato l'esproprio di un vasto territorio di pascolo comune (il Pratobello) per creare un'area addestrativa militare NATO. Gli abitanti di Orgosolo, pastori e agricoltori che dipendevano da questi pascoli, organizzarono una resistenza popolare che durò settimane, con blocchi stradali, assemblee popolari, e la presenza fisica di migliaia di persone sui terreni contestati. Il governo cedette. Pratobello rimase pascolo comune. La vittoria fu uno dei rarissimi esempi di successo della resistenza popolare contro un'esproprio militare nell'Italia del dopoguerra. Il primo murale di del Casino, dipinto per il primo anniversario della rivolta, commemora questo momento. Vedi anche: Sardinia · Nuoro · Barbagia.
Quello che gli Altri Non Ti Dicono su Orgosolo
I murales di Orgosolo non sono musealizzati, possono essere toccati, e alcune parti di murali più vecchi si stanno sfaldando sotto l'effetto di decenni di intemperie. Questo degrado è parte della loro natura: sono pitture su pareti esterne di case abitate, non opere in una galleria climatizzata. Alcune sono state ridipinte, gli originali anni '70 di certe pareti sono stati ricoperti con versioni nuove degli stessi soggetti. Questo processo è naturale e coerente con la logica del progetto: i muri continuano a parlare, anche se le voci cambiano. La cosa che sorprende di più chi visita Orgosolo per la prima volta non è la qualità dei singoli murali, è la quantità. Giri un angolo: murale. Giri un altro: murale. Entrate in un vicolo: murale su entrambe le pareti. L'effetto di saturazione, di vivere in un ambiente completamente politicizzato visivamente, è unico in Italia e forse in Europa.
