The Piccalinna mine, in Guspini, opened in 1874, spreads over some 370 hectares underground. Initially operated under a concession by the Italian-French company Nouvelle Arboree, in 1897 it was sold to the Società Montevecchio.

The company reorganised both the surface installations and activity at the mine faces, returning the mine to full-scale activity up to its closure in 1981.

The mine compound has fine masonry buildings with brickwork decorations on the facades, built with an eye to style, and which were once the operational heart of the mine works. Other buildings, now derelict and sunk in vegetation, were the living quarters of the unmarried miners: these are seven buildings in all, built in the 1940s, which were added to two earlier ones, constructed in the late 19^th century when the shaft of San Giovanni was opened.

On the opposite side, perched on a hill overlooking the mine works stands a stylish plastered building erected in the early 20^th century. Adorned by string-courses, pilaster strips and door and window trims in stone, it served as living quarters for the mine foremen.

The head of the Shaft of San Giovanni, the lamp-house, the hoist room, the compressor building (made in exposed basalt stone with masonry elements in the late 19^th century), the electric power station, the Piccalinna ore treatment plant, the office building and the smithy are the main above-ground structures in the mine compound. The hoist room (spool type, with flat cables) still preserves the imposing hoist engine, originally steam-powered, subsequently, from the 1930s, electricity-powered.

The compressor room housed the equipment for producing compressed air, in the mine to treat the water supplying the ore treatment plant and providing motive force to the drills and other machinery used both above and below ground.

Address: Cantieri di Levante SP 66 Km 5 . Guspini-Montevecchio Phone info point +39 070 973173 . Cell phone +39 389 164 3692 Managing Agency: Municipality of Guspini