After the bloody battle of Lutocisterna in February 1324, the Catalan-Aragonese conquest of Sardinia seemed to face no further obstacles. In June of the same year, the Pisans renounced all their possessions on the island except for Castel di Castro. Sheltered by its walls, they needed to respond to the exhausting attacks of the Catalan-Aragonese settled on the hill south-east of Castello, where they began to build the fortified citadel called Bonaria. Meanwhile, in the north of the island, the people of Sassari, together with the Doria and Malaspina families, were eager to rid themselves of their new masters, who showed no sign of respecting the Statutes of Sassari and the old privileges of the nobility. Ugone II, the judge of Arborea, a proponent and promoter of the alliance with Aragon, was well aware of the discontent stirring among the Sardinians, and he could not deny the oppression of the feudal lords. With skilful diplomacy, the judge tried to act as a mediator between Aragon and the Sardinians, who were tempted to support Pisa once again, securing a prestigious role for himself and aspiring to rule the whole of Sardinia, even indirectly. The fate of the island was decided more by cynical calculations than by the naval battle between Pisa and Aragon that took place in the Gulf of Cagliari between 1325 and 1326.
