The Antico Archivio Regio (Old Royal Archives) is the oldest and most significant archival holding preserved by the Cagliari State Archives.

It does not correspond to the archive of a single institution. Instead, it brings together records produced by the administrations that succeeded one another in governing Sardinia between the fourteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Its origins lie in the General Archives of the Regnum Sardiniae, established by Alfonso IV of Aragon in 1332 and based in the Castello district of Cagliari. Over the centuries, with the transition from the Crown of Aragon to the Spanish monarchy and then to the House of Savoy, the records produced by the government offices were progressively brought together and rearranged. They were subsequently incorporated into the pre-existing archival complex.

This archival holding preserves normative acts, administrative measures, financial and judicial registers, dispatches, correspondence and other records connected with the exercise of government, control and territorial administration. Its present structure also reflects the subject‑based rearrangement ordered in the eighteenth century by the Savoy monarchy, as well as the subsequent organisation of the documentary heritage incorporated into the Royal Archives.

The Antico Archivio Regio (Old Royal Archives) allows users to trace the evolution of the island’s institutional framework and the relationship between central and peripheral authorities. It also sheds light on the administrative practices that shaped the history of Sardinia during the Aragonese, Spanish and Savoy periods. For this reason, it constitutes a primary source for research into the island’s institutional, administrative, legal and social history.