Asproni Mining Village

Story of a Rebirth

Despite being over a century old and having endured the ravages of time and man, the Asproni Mining Village remains today one of the very few surviving examples of mining architecture, now privately owned, and the quintessential emblem of the Seddas Moddizzis mine.

Located a short distance from the city of Iglesias, the Village was built at the beginning of the twentieth century by the will of Engineer Giorgio Asproni near the mine of which Asproni himself would become the owner, investing the considerable family fortune in the enterprise.

Originally from Bitti, where he was born in 1841, the young Asproni graduated in Mathematics in Genoa at only 20 years old, in Engineering in Turin at 22, then specialized in Mineralogy in Saint Etienne, France, in 1864, at the age of 23. He completed his technical training in England and Belgium and further perfected his education by undertaking study and update trips in the countries of Europe during the height of the industrial revolution. Returning to Sardinia in 1866, he took on his first important role, accepting the management of the Montevecchio mine in southwestern Sardinia, owned by mining industrialist Giovanni Antonio Sanna, one of the few island entrepreneurs in a sector dominated by foreign capital. Asproni managed that silver-lead mine for a decade.

After brief experiences in other mines in the Sulcis Iglesiente area, in 1885 Engineer Asproni took over the management of the Seddas Moddizzis Mine, eventually acquiring the entire shareholding, simultaneously deciding to complement his work project with a life project by designing and building a true Village to host the families of his employees and to settle there himself with his family. The history of the Village has therefore been closely linked from the beginning to the history of the mine, and the life of the Village, to which Asproni spared nothing, intertwined with the life of its founder, managing to survive him for decades after his death in 1936. Even today, the Village still houses the church, the elementary school, the store/cellar, the management offices, the residences of managers, clerks, workers, as well as the Asproni family home with all its outbuildings.

Abandoned in the 1970s, the site experienced a very long period of neglect until a few years ago, after thorough research in the Historical and Mining Archives of Iglesias, an important recovery and redevelopment project was launched, strongly desired by the current owners of the Village.

In the autumn of 2020, the cleanup and clearing of buildings and the many open spaces in the urban area began, finally freeing them from rubble and debris. At the same time, spaces once intended for socializing were restored, such as the elementary school courtyard, the area in front of the public washhouse, and the walkway leading from the Church to the center of the Village. Between 2021 and 2023, the first conservation restoration sites started and are now completed: the full restoration of the Mining Management building and the roof restoration of Casa Asproni. 

The goal is to clean up, recover, and enhance the entire area for primarily cultural, educational, informative, and tourist/environmental purposes.

Today at the Asproni Village, CULTURE, ART, HISTORY, AND MEMORY go hand in hand with a Rebirth that aims above all to cultivate the value of experience and make our historical heritage a common good. We work so that the site maintains its extraordinary identity value and increasingly becomes a bridge between past and future, a place where especially young and very young generations can rediscover their roots and find in the history of their land the deep reasons for their present.

Today the site offers visitors true experiential paths and is simultaneously a Cultural Hub, a welcoming place as well as an open-air Laboratory for outreach and educational activities aimed at schools of all levels.

The Village is open year-round for guided tours by reservation through the official website www.villaggiominerarioasproni.it