Museo - Palazzo della Frumentaria, Sassari

La Frumentaria, or Palazzo della Frumentaria, is a historic building in Sassari used as a museum and contemporary art gallery. Located in the San Sisto district, on the corner of Via al Rosello and Via delle Muraglie, it represents one of the rare survivals of 16th-century Sassari civil construction.

The building consists of two different two-story bodies, similar in both shape and size, placed side by side along the longer side and built from 1597 to 1598 and 1607 to 1608, respectively. The roofs are double-pitched and the eaves channel runs inside the wall and then drains with a gargoyle in the center of the facade.

The Palazzo della Frumentaria represents in Sardinia the first facility for the storage of grain, which was purchased directly by the municipal authority according to a controlled mode, that of afforo-that is, at a price established by the civic workers-and kept as a strategic reserve to be used exclusively in case of war or famine. This was by virtue of a 1362 privilege by which Peter the Ceremonious granted the city of Sassari the power to amass 6,400 rasieri of new grain from the district's farms each year.

From the mid-19th century the Frumentaria was used as a barracks; it then housed the well-known Clemente carpentry shop and later the headquarters of the People's Union. Since 2000, thanks to a thorough restoration, it has been reopened to citizens and used as an exhibition space for temporary exhibitions. It is managed by the Municipality of Sassari.