The old Fortress of Villasimius is set on a headland not far from Capo Carbonara, west the wide Gulf of Cagliari.

It is a complex structure whose first nucleus probably dates back the XIV century. This hypothesis has been possible after the study of the wall structure and by analysing the historical events that characterised that period.

It is necessary to remember that Villasimius, in those times Carbonara, passes from Nino Visconti into the hands of the Aragon kings that gave the property to the Carroz’s as a feud, whose members had a large part in the conquest of the island and in driving the Pisans out of the territories of the “Giudicato di Cagliari”, whose Carbonara was part of it.

The Fortress was built in a period of change, of great transformations and witnesses the necessity of this lands to protect themselves. At the end of the XVI century, there was the intervention of Spain linked to the great project of Philip II who provided the coastal defences with a system of connected towers which had to resist to the uncontrollable landing of the Turkish-Barbaresque.