The building that now houses the Faculty of Economic, Legal and Political Sciences began as the Institute for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb in the second half of the 19th century.
The direction of the Institute, from the beginning, was entrusted to the theologian Argiolas, a priest and elementary teacher, to whose name is largely linked the history of the educational complex for deaf-mutes in Cagliari. The Institute’s teaching activities ended before 1980. The adjoining Faculty Garden, which is now accessed from St. Ignatius Avenue, was originally part of a vast expanse of land, used as a vegetable garden, belonging to the Capuchin monastery, who had founded their first Sardinian convent on the hill west of the Amphitheater as early as 1595. The land stretched from present-day Piazza D’Armi and Buoncammino Avenue to the north, and from the Red Cross settlement and Merello Avenue to the south, to Don Bosco Street (formerly Argiolas Street); also encompassed within the land were some ancient cisterns. The vast vegetable garden served the friars to procure their daily food, especially for fruits, vegetables and legumes, and the raising of domestic animals. Currently, access to the Capuchin Garden is located on Merello Avenue. A permanent installation by Olbia artist Giovanni Campus, entitled Sequences of Time, a project conceived and curated by art historian Maria Dolores Picciau, is located within the Faculty Garden. A work that marries art with the environment and that of the outdoor space becomes a natural continuation. Anticipated by a meticulous study of the context, it is dedicated to the theme of education and was conceived by the artist as a process of measuring the territory, as a path that rearticulates the space with modular sequences obtained with the use of wooden beams painted white, with a length of six meters. The three sculptures are arranged among the trees and amid the greenery and are in total harmony with the nature of the garden itself.
