Europe · Reformation to revolution
Kingdom of Sardinia
1324–1861
On 4 April 1297 Pope Boniface VIII created the Regnum Sardiniae et Corsicae as a papal fief and enfeoffed it to James II of Aragon, a diplomatic device linked to resolving the War of the Sicilian Vespers. For years it existed only on paper.
- Existed
- 1324–1861
- Shown on the map
- 1721–1861
- Peak area
- 238k km²
- Region
- Europe
Papal origin
On 4 April 1297 Pope Boniface VIII created the Regnum Sardiniae et Corsicae as a papal fief and enfeoffed it to James II of Aragon, a diplomatic device linked to resolving the War of the Sicilian Vespers. For years it existed only on paper.
Aragonese conquest
The Crown of Aragon launched its conquest in 1323 (the fleet sailed from Barcelona, May 1323), establishing de facto authority by 1324 after defeating Pisa. Arborea resisted until the Battle of Sanluri (1409) and its dissolution (1420). The kingdom was thereafter ruled by Aragon and, from 1516, by Habsburg Spain.
Transfer to Savoy
After the War of the Spanish Succession the island changed hands (Austria, then a Spanish reconquest 1717). By the arrangement underlying the Treaty of London (1718) and executed by the Treaty of The Hague (17 February 1720), Victor Amadeus II of Savoy exchanged Sicily (which went to Austria) for Sardinia, becoming King of Sardinia in 1720. (He resisted the swap and continued styling himself King of Sicily until 1723.)
Piedmontese state and unification
The Savoyard "Kingdom of Sardinia" — its real center of gravity in mainland Piedmont (Turin) — became the nucleus of Italian unification. Under Victor Emmanuel II and his minister Camillo Cavour, it fought the wars of independence, absorbed most of the peninsula in 1859–1860 (including via Garibaldi's expedition), and was transformed into the Kingdom of Italy in 1861.
Common questions
- What was the Kingdom of Sardinia?
- On 4 April 1297 Pope Boniface VIII created the Regnum Sardiniae et Corsicae as a papal fief and enfeoffed it to James II of Aragon, a diplomatic device linked to resolving the War of the Sicilian Vespers. For years it existed only on paper.
- When did the Kingdom of Sardinia exist?
- The Kingdom of Sardinia existed 1324–1861. On this map it is drawn 1721–1861.
- How large was the Kingdom of Sardinia?
- At its greatest extent drawn on this map, the Kingdom of Sardinia covered about 238,000 km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.
Sources
This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia articles for each polity as the primary basis, cross-checked against Encyclopædia Britannica, the World History Encyclopedia and the scholarship of Donald Queller, Thomas Madden and Jonathan Harris on the Fourth Crusade, whose post-conspiracy reading of 1204 this document follows. The article this entry is anchored on:
- Wikipedia — Kingdom of Sardinia (1720-1861) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Sardinia_(1720-1861)
This entry was last updated .
This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made
Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.
Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).
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