Calamosca Tower

Situated in the locality of Calamosca, in Cagliari, it was a sighting and light defence tower, senzilla, consisting of two overlapping volumes, one with a truncated cone and one with a cylinder. It communicated with almost all the towers of the Gulf of Cagliari, except those of the Poetto, Mezza Spiaggia, Carcangiolas and Foxi.

The masonry, made of calcareous material, has a base thickness of about 3.6 m. The cylindrical part, the result of subsequent restorations, is made of brick and stone and occupies the place of the original parade ground. The entrance, located about 5 m high and oriented towards the north-west, is now walled up; the tower is accessed by a new opening created at the level of the land. From the main room, with a domed vault, you reach the upper floor, also covered by a dome, through a staircase carved into the wall thickness.

Built in 1638, it is called the Tower (or Station) of the Signals because of an ingenious signalling device that allowed it to communicate with the Castle of Cagliari. The upper cylinder did not appear in the tower design, which seems to date back to a subsequent intervention in the mid-nineteenth century, in which a further expansion of the entire complex was carried out. This operation, in addition to changing the volumes, also made important changes to the internal distribution: on the first floor, in fact, four loopholes were made and habitable rooms were created.

Having become a barracks, the tower has always remained in use and is overall in excellent condition, except for a slight deterioration of the surfaces.