The legend of the king of Rebeccu’s daughter and her curse ”Rebeccu, Rebecchei da ‘e trinta domos non movei” (“that Rebeccu will never reach thirty houses”), is one of the stories that are told in the area.

The curse was hurled by Donoria, daughter of King Beccu, before leaving the town, after she was forced into exile because she was considered to be a witch. After Donoria’s departure, a decline began and the town’s population left due to the rapid spreading of malaria.

The area of Rebeccu, a hamlet of Bonorva, dominates the Santa Lucia plain. In the Roman era, this site stood along the road that connected Cagliari to Olbia. During the Middle Ages it was the lead town of the Costaval Curadoria, in the Giudicato of Torres.

Fig. 1 - Aerial view of the small village of Rebeccu (by Sardegnageoportale).

Fig. 2 - The village church (photo M.G. Arru).

The centre of the town was originally made up of four small centres located at the churches of San Lorenzo and Sant’Andria, at Sa Contissa (or Sas Presones), around the church of Santa Maria, at Cantaru ’Addes and by the current one at the church of Santa Giulia.

In the 13th century, Rebeccu was owned by the Malaspina family and was involved by the latter, after 1325, in the rebellion against the Aragon dynasty, and suffered serious damage from the war. When the second war broke out in 1353 between Mariano IV of Arborea and Peter IV of Aragon, it was invaded and set fire to and then occupied by the giudicato troops that held it until the fall of the Arborea. The village was then given to several families of the Aragon Lords.

From the fifteenth century, Rebeccu began its decline due to plague and famine.

Fig. 3 - Houses in Rebeccu (photo M.G. Arru).

Relations with the last lords, the Amat family of Villarios, were so difficult that the inhabitants of Rebeccu took part in rebellions against the lords in 1795 and destroyed the offices of the baronial administration.

Fig. 4 - The narrow roads in the town (photo M.G. Arru).

From 1821 to 1848, the village was annexed to the province of Alghero and then, after the provinces were abolished, became a part of the territorial administrative division of Sassari. Finally, in 1859, it once again became a part of the reorganised province of Sassari. With its population reduced to just over 100 inhabitants, and having lost its autonomy, it became a hamlet of the municipality of Bonorva in 1928.

Rebeccu is now almost uninhabited, in spite of that the small houses looking onto the narrow, winding roads dug out of the rock keep the charm of the old town unchanged.