Sardinia is traditionally known to have been initially ruled by the Nuragic civilization, which was followed by Greek colonization, conquest by the Carthaginians, and occupied by the Romans for around a thousand years, including the rule of the Vandals in the 5th and 6th centuries CE. Before the foundation of the Kingdom of Sardinia, Sardinia was ruled by judices, and some rulers obtained the title of King of Sardinia by the Holy Roman Emperor but did not gain effective authority to rule it.
The title of as Rex Sardiniae et Corsicae (King of Sardinia and Corsica) was first established in 1297, when Pope Boniface VIII gave a royal investiture to James II of Aragon. The Crown of Aragon started effectively ruling Sardinia in 1323. Until 1479, when Ferdinand II of Aragon acknowledged Corsica as part of the Republic of Genoa, rulers of Sardinia used the nominal title of Rex Corsicae (King of Corsica). Corsica had been effectively ruled by Genoa since 1284 and the Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica had been renamed simply Kingdom of Sardinia in 1460, when it was incorporated into a sort of confederation of states, each with its own institutions, called the Crown of Aragon, and united only in the person of the king.
