The presence of the Piedmontese rulers in Sardinia constitutes a sure stimulus in the transformation of local taste and culture, also contributing to changing the customs and way of life of the aristocracy and the wealthy bourgeoisie, particularly in the revaluation of the countryside as a place of pleasure and life, as well as an economic resource to be exploited and managed rationally. It was in this socio-economic context that, in 1812, at the foot of the hill of San Michele, Count Gaetano Pollini had the villa built that still bears his name, the only one that has survived to the present day, once connected to the Villa Sant’Agostino by a splendid tree-lined avenue and now the operational headquarters of the Superintendence for Archaeological Heritage for the provinces of Cagliari and Oristano. The entire structure, in the movement of the facade, still follows the Rococo taste, while the decoration is Palladian-inspired, a stylistic inconsistency that also characterizes other important villas built in the same period in the Lombard territory. According to the testimony of Canon Giovanni Spano (Cagliari, 1861), it was built by G. Franco to the design of an unidentified Milanese architect, to be identified almost certainly with the marble worker Giovanni Battista Franco. The villa is part of a mini urban nucleus that includes the chapel, dedicated to the Immaculate Conception of Mary, now destroyed, and rooms for staff and for the farming activity that took place there. Inside the villa, the Soprintendenza Archivistica per la Sardegna is offering the public a documented exhibition dedicated to the figure of Gaetano Pollini. The research, conducted at some of the most important archives on the island and also involving the collaboration of the Municipal Archives and the Art Museum of Mendrisio (Canton Ticino), has made it possible to reconstruct what were the main activities of Pollini, who became one of the richest local merchants. The period most favorable to him coincided with the residence in Cagliari of the Savoy family, to whom he was linked by a relationship of mutual convenience and from whom he obtained hereditary knighthood and, in 1791, the title of count. Gaetano Pollini died in Cagliari on September 20, 1820.
