San Sperate is a municipality in the province of Cagliari with approximately 7,000 inhabitants.
Located 20 km from Cagliari, San Sperate is one of the most important agricultural centres in Sardinia. The prevalent cultivation is peaches, followed by citrus fruits, apricots, wheat, tomatoes, cereals and vegetables. The area is covered with beautiful gardens of lemons, oranges and mandarins.
Its history is very ancient, as the numerous remains testify. In 1976, during one of the first archaeological excavations, the famous Ghignante Mask was found, unique for the fine workmanship with which it was made. Also noteworthy is the famous Nuraghe Model, today kept at the Archaeological Museum of Cagliari.
In 1967, San Sperate became a ‘museum-country’, hosting the works of various Italian and foreign artists and organising cultural meetings, theatre reviews and musical performances on its territory. The idea of the museum-country was born in 1966 on the initiative of the artist Pinuccio Sciola, who began by painting the walls of the houses white for the Corpus Domini feast and then invited numerous artists to paint their works on the walls of the village.
In San Sperate today, it is possible to admire as many as 260 murals along the streets of the village, almost all of them drawings made with water-resistant colours executed on plastered walls painted with biancone.