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
Sardinia occupied the territory. The Giudicato of Arborea, having Oristano as its capital, had the longest life compared to the other kingdoms. Its later history is entwined with the attempt to unify the island into a single Sardinian state ("Republica sardisca" "Sardinian Republic" in Sardinian, "Nació sarda" or "sardesca" "Sardinian Nation" in Catalan) against their relatives and former Aragonese allies. In 1297, Pope Boniface VIII established on his own initiative ("motu proprio") a hypothetical "regnum Sardiniae et Corsicae" ("Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica") in order to settle the War of the Sicilian Vespers diplomatically. This had broken out in 1282 between