"In part, the Sardinian outlook on political matters is a feature of their heritage of medieval independence. Even to peasants and herdsmen, the close, convivial world of the giudicati had great advantages over the more exploitative rule of Pisans, Genoese, Aragonese and Spaniards, and the Sardinians never forgot that they had once been in charge of their own destinies. The long wars for independence of Mariano IV and Eleonora of Arborea against Aragon created a sense of nationhood that never entirely disappeared, even though the Sardinians lost."