Over the past decades, the Ducal Palace has undergone several restoration and enhancement works, during which two archaeological survey campaigns, 1985 and 2006, were conducted in the ground-floor rooms distributed around the central courtyard. Excavations uncovered five basement rooms below the floor levels, probably pertaining to 16th-century dwellings demolished to make way for the construction of the Manca family’s first noble palace and later reused within the new palace built by the Duke of Asinara.
“The Duke’s Cellars” open to the public an unprecedented window on the Ducal Palace, the institutional headquarters of the City Administration. The route winds along a walkway suspended over the palace’s cellars whose unique architecture makes the place striking and capable of arousing great emotion. Between cisterns, wells and cesspools, it traverses underground environments and is enhanced by panels, drawings and the display of a selection of objects recovered during archaeological excavations.
