ABSTRACT
Locality may originate under diametrically opposed circumstances, namely, conflict between or within different settlements. In some areas of the nineteenth-century “Topographic map of the States on the mainland of His Majesty, the King of Sardinia”, it can often be a challenge to identify the main population centre. The tensions produced by the local configuration of powers were remarkably constant over time: pre-fifteenth century records rarely make mention of the community; and popular Ghibellinism fuelled strife between the community and landlords over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The chapter utilises a series of particularly well-documented case studies to formulate a hypothesis that explains the proliferation and persistence of the farmstead within this particular settlement landscape. It must be kept in mind that the farmstead figured prominently in the territorial tensions marking local life. The most tell-tale sign of this was the institutional dualism of the central village and its outlying settlements.
