It is like witnessing a slow agony, a monument that is a symbol of the identity of the city of Porto Torres, where degradation reigns in contrast with its beauty. The Aragonese tower, the only one with an octagonal plan among the towers that overlook the Mediterranean coast, has been in a state of complete abandonment for too long, no longer usable and outside the circuit of visits of Monumenti Aperti.
Mayor Massimo Mulas had repeatedly made a request to the State Property Agency to obtain delivery to the Municipality, with the proposal that the institution assume the costs of managing the monument, negotiations that seem to have found a positive solution.
"The willingness of the State Property Agency to grant the municipal administration the management of the Aragonese Tower is the result of a constructive dialogue, in particular with the director Rita Soddu, on this and other issues for which our two bodies relate with periodic and cadenced discussions", the mayor reported in the chamber. "Through a multi-year concession we will be able to proceed with suitable planning to intercept the resources necessary to provide answers in terms of redevelopment and usability of what is a very important asset of the city's identity and which therefore deserves all the attention possible".
The Aragonese tower built to protect the port in 1325 by order of Admiral Francesco Carroz, following the Aragonese occupation of Sardinia, will celebrate 700 years of history next year, a long time in which the destructive work advances inexorably. In recent years the structure has been repeatedly vandalized, glass and windows broken, the door torn off with access off limits, pigeon droppings everywhere, mattresses abandoned everywhere and the stairs degraded. Around it is a pile of rubbish. The tower is also a symbol of the workers' struggle after a year and a half - from January 2010 to June 2011 - it also became the outpost of the laid-off workers of Vinyls in the protest for the defense of work. It also suffered “violence” in the last restoration completed around 1985, when the 16-meter-high tower was plastered improperly, a job that art critic Vittorio Sgarbi, during a visit to the city, defined as “horrible.”
