Guide · History

The Kingdom of Tavolara: what is legend and what is record

Tavolara has a king, or at least a famous story about one. The tale behind the title is part family pride, part legend and part documented history, and it is worth knowing which is which before you land.

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Editorial team, tavolaraboattour.comUpdated October 20, 20266-minute read21 sources

The tour for this guide Tavolara boat tour with snorkeling 4.9 (1,145 reviews) 4 hoursFrom the MOYS marina, OlbiaSnorkel gear included from$87per person Check availabilityFree to cancel until 24 hrs before your boat

Quick answer

01The family: The Bertoleoni, shepherds on the island; the protected area dates their arrival to the 1600s.¹
02The first king: Giuseppe Bertoleoni in the 19th century, or so it is presumed.²
03The legend: King Charles Albert is said to have named a Bertoleoni king of the island.³
04The record: No document of a royal recognition survives; historians call the title a nickname.⁴ ⁵
05Today: The family's restaurant, Da Tonino, and the royal graves on the island.⁶ ⁷

A family of shepherds on a limestone island

The Kingdom of Tavolara begins with a family, the Bertoleoni. The Marine Protected Area tells their story as one between myth and reality: shepherds who came to the island and ruled it, by its account arriving in the 1600s.¹ A historian who has studied the family dates the start differently, to 1807, with Giuseppe Bertoleoni, a Corsican who had lived between La Maddalena and the islet of Santa Maria.⁸

Life on Tavolara was hard and practical. The protected area says the family farmed, kept sheep and fished, and owned the island until 1886.⁹ For a long time it also ran the island's lime production: limestone and firewood fed numerous kilns, still visible today, which kept working until 1955.⁹

What made the family famous was not the farming but a title. The protected area describes Giuseppe Bertoleoni, landowner, smuggler, poacher and bigamist, as the first King of Tavolara in the 19th century, or presumed to be so.² That careful last phrase is the key to the whole story.

The story in dates

From shepherds to a NATO base

1600s

The family arrives

By the protected area's account, Bertoleoni shepherds settle.¹
1807

A historian's start

Giuseppe Bertoleoni, a Corsican, begins the documented story.⁸
1836

The royal visit

The year Italia.it gives for the legend of the meeting with Charles Albert.¹⁰
1886

Ownership ends

The family's ownership of the island ends, says the protected area.⁹
1955

Kilns go cold

The last lime kilns stop working.⁹
1961

NATO base

Built at Punta Timone; the last residents leave.¹¹

The legend of the king and the golden-toothed goats

The best-known tale involves a real king. According to the regional tourism board, King Charles Albert of Savoy came to Tavolara looking for legendary goats with golden teeth, and named the island's only inhabitant its king.³ The goats' teeth, the board adds, were probably yellow from eating helichrysum, the yellow-flowered shrub of the island.¹²

Even the official retellings disagree on the details. The Italian page of the tourism board names Giuseppe Bertoleoni as the man made king, while its English page names Paolo.³ ¹² Italia.it, the national tourism portal, says that according to legend Giuseppe reached the La Maddalena archipelago at the end of the 18th century, settled on Tavolara and in 1836 presented himself to Charles Albert as king of the place, a title then passed from father to son.¹⁰

This is a legend with everything a good story needs: a lonely island, a visiting monarch and a smuggler with a crown. Enjoy it as that. The next part of the story is about what can actually be shown. If you hear a different version at the landing or on your boat, that is part of the fun: oral traditions change with each teller, and nobody alive can settle the argument.

Legend or record

What each source says

Claim	Status	Source
Charles Albert named a king	Legend	SardegnaTurismo, Italia.it
Charles Albert visited the island	Documented	Della Marmora, via Farinelli
Giuseppe owned the island	Documented	Farinelli
A royal title was granted	No record	Farinelli
The family arrived in the 1600s	Disputed	The protected area; Farinelli says 1807

As the regional tourism board, the national portal, the protected area and the historian Marcel Farinelli present it.³ ¹⁰ ¹³ ¹⁴ ⁴ ¹ ⁸

Landing on the island

Three boats that put you ashore

PortoS.Paolo: Half Day Traditional Boat Tour Tavolara Molara

Walk on the beach

Vintage half day

From Porto San Paolo

Hours: 4
Stops: Three swims
Price: from $93

See this trip

Olbia: Tavolara & Molara with 3 Swim Stops & Aperitif

1 hour ashore

Docking half day

From the Olbia marina

Hours: 4
Ashore: Bar and restrooms
Price: from $93

See this trip

Lunch on the island

Grand tour

From San Teodoro

Hours: 6
Ashore: 1.5 hours
Price: from $87

See this trip

Decision helper

How do you want to meet the kingdom?

Pick the experience that tempts you most

I want to walk where the family lived I want lunch on the island I want dinner at the family's restaurant I want the sea more than the story I want an hour ashore from Olbia

Vintage half day

It lists a stop where guests go ashore and walk on the beach.

San Teodoro grand tour

1.5 hours ashore for lunch, a walk and a swim.

The evening boat

Out at 19:30, back at 22:30, booked through Da Tonino.¹⁵

This site's tour

Swim stops off Tavolara and at Punta Spalmatore.

Docking half day

1 hour of free time at the island's pier.

In the 19th century, Giuseppe Bertoleoni, landowner, smuggler, poacher and bigamist, was the first King of Tavolara, or presumed to be so.

Area Marina Protetta Tavolara Punta Coda CavalloSource 2

What the records actually show

A scholarly article on Tavolara separates the two strands clearly. It is certain, the author writes, that Charles Albert met Giuseppe Bertoleoni and visited the island, citing the writer Della Marmora.¹³ There is, however, no record of any recognition as king, nor any other reliable evidence for the oral tradition; whatever official papers may have existed have disappeared.⁴

Two facts stand on firmer ground. Giuseppe Bertoleoni, after living on the island for decades, was recognised as its legitimate owner, and for decades the family were the exclusive owners of Tavolara, building some houses and a cemetery where the royal graves can still be seen.¹⁴ ⁷

Serious historians today, the same article says, treat the King of Tavolara as a nickname given to Giuseppe.⁵ That does not make the story worthless. It makes it a piece of local folklore with a documented family, a documented royal visit and a title that nobody can prove was ever granted.

Checklist

Visiting the island of the kings

Respect

Keep to the paths near the landing
Ask before photographing people
Leave the cemetery and graves in peace

Plan

Choose a boat that lands, if you want to walk
Book the dinner boat through Da Tonino
Stay away from the military zone

Video

Stanley Tucci Dines at a King's Restaurant | Tucci in Italy | National Geographic

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Lighthouse, landowners and the NATO base

The kingdom's land shrank over the following century. The same scholar writes that the Italian Navy expropriated part of the island to build a lighthouse, and that in the 1950s the Marzano, an aristocratic family from mainland Italy, bought estates on Tavolara in expectation of a tourism boom.¹⁶ ¹⁷

Then came the military. In 1961 a NATO base was built at Punta Timone, and because of it the last residents had to leave the island, according to the protected area.¹¹ Another portion of Tavolara was expropriated for NATO radio facilities, which restricted access to the island.¹⁸ After 1952 the island's stable population had already begun to fall while tourism grew into its main activity.¹⁹

Today the island is a patchwork of owners. Visitors are free to move on the part owned by the Bertoleoni descendants, while the Marzano and the Italian state restrict access to their properties.²⁰ Keep to the paths near the landing and you stay on the right side of every line. Respect any sign that marks private or military land: each one is a modern trace of that history, the point where one owner's land ends and the next begins.

Re di Tavolara: the kingdom today

The title has outlived the old kingdom. The island's film festival describes Da Tonino as the restaurant of Tonino Bertoleoni, re di Tavolara, open for lunch and dinner.⁶ The regional tourism board says the descendants of the legendary first king are still the island's only residents and its guardians.²¹

Sources do not agree on that last point. The protected area writes that the last residents had to leave Tavolara after the NATO base was built in 1961.¹¹ Both statements are printed by official bodies, so treat the family's presence as a living tradition at the landing rather than as a population count.

You can eat at the family's restaurant on a day trip, or come over in the evening. The island's ferry company runs a dinner boat that leaves Porto San Paolo at 19:30 and returns at 22:30, booked by calling Da Tonino.¹⁵ It is the easiest way to sit at the royal table, so to speak, without a boat of your own.

Visiting the island of the kings

To see the island where the story happened, you need a boat that lands. The vintage half day from Porto San Paolo lists a stop where guests can go ashore and walk on the beach, and a 4-hour trip from Olbia docks at the island's pier for 1 hour of free time. The grand tour from San Teodoro gives 1.5 hours ashore for a lunch you bring or buy at the island's bar.

This site's own tour swims off Tavolara and at Punta Spalmatore and cruises through the protected area between stops. It is the better choice if the sea, the snorkeling and the views matter more to you than a walk among the old houses, and it is back at the Olbia marina at 1:30 PM. From the water the island looks almost untouched, and seeing it that way first makes a later visit ashore all the more interesting.

Once ashore, treat the island as what it is: someone's home, a protected area and, at one end, a military zone. Ask before photographing people, keep to the paths, take your rubbish with you and leave the graves in peace. The kingdom may be a legend, but the family and their island are real.

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