History of Sardinia from the Mainland. The repression by the Fascist regime of its opponents within the region was ruthless. Rural Sardinia showed little interest in the Fascist state, while the urban bourgeoise from the cities were its staunchest supporters on the island. Antonio Gramsci, one of the founders of Italian Communist Party, was arrested and died in prison. The anarchist Michele Schirru was executed after a failed assassination plot against Benito Mussolini. During World War II Sardinia was a theater of bombing; the cities of Cagliari and Alghero were heavily bombed. The war ended in Sardinia in late 1943, with the shift
Kingdom of Sardinia Piedmont-Sardinia, or even the Kingdom of Piedmont to emphasise that the island of Sardinia was of secondary importance to the monarchy. The formal name of the entire Savoyard state was the "States of His Majesty the King of Sardinia". Its final capital was Turin, the capital of Savoy since the Middle Ages. The kingdom initially consisted of the islands of Corsica and Sardinia, sovereignty over both of which was claimed by the Papacy, which granted them as a fief, the "regnum Sardiniae et Corsicae" ("kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica"), to King James II of Aragon in 1297. Beginning in 1324,