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Fontego dei Tedeschi / Fondaco dei Tedeschi / Warehouse of the Germans, Calle del Fontego dei Tedeschi, San Marco, 30100 Venezia VE, IT 29/80
Venezia / Venice 360° - Terrazza Panoramica / Panoramic Rooftop Terrace Views 25/72
w. Cupole della Chiesa di San Simeone e Giuda vulgo San Simeon Piccolo / Domes of Church of Sts. Simeon and Jude, Palazzo dei Camerlenghi, Campanile della Chiesa di San Giovanni Elemosinario / Bell Tower of Church of St. John the Merciful or the Almsgiver, Campanile della Chiesa di San Cassiano / Bell Tower of Church of St. Cassian, Cupola & Campanile / Dome & Bell Tower of Chiesa di San Geremia Profeta / Church of St. Jeremy or Jeremiah the Prophet, Fabbriche Nuove di Rialto, Canal Grande / Grand Canal, Top of Campanile della Chiesa di Santa Fosca / Bell Tower of Church of St. Fusca of Ravenna, Chiesa della Madonna dell'Orto / Church of Our Lady of the Garden, Scuola Nuova di Santa Maria della Misericordia / New School of St. Mary of Mercy
Chocolate Well - Cioccolateria Nino & Friends, Salizada San Giovanni Grisostomo 5758, 30124 Venezia, VE, IT 02/04
Azienda del Consorzio Trasporti Veneziano (ACTV) Linea / Line 2 Vaporetto Ride - Linee / Lines 2, 5.1, 6, 10 & N Fermata Vaporetto Zattere criss-cross Canale della Giudecca / Canal de ła Zueca / Giudecca Canal tow. San Marco-San Zaccaria 40/41
w. Campanile pendente di Santo Stefano / leaning Bell Tower of Church of St. Stephen, Campanile della Chiesa di San Moisè / Bell Tower of Church of Moses, Giardini Reali / Former Royal Gardens, Procuratie Nuove / New Procuracies, Palazzo della Zecca / Mint of Venice, Biblioteca Marciana / Marciana Library aka Library of St. Mark, Campanile di San Marco / St. Mark's Bell Tower, Palazzo Ducale / Doge's Palace, Ponte della Paglia, Roofs / Tops of Basilica Cattedrale Patriarcale Metropolitana Primaziale Collegiata di San Marco Evangelista / Patriarchal Cathedral Basilica of St. Mark, Prigioni Nuove / New Prisons, Hotel Danieli fka Palazzo Dandolo, Hotel Savoia e Jolanda, Hotel Paganelli, Hotel Londra Palace
Chiesa della Santa Maria Maddalena in Cannaregio / Church of St. Mary Magdalene aka St. Mary of Magdala, Fondamenta de le Colonete 2205, Cannaregio, 30121 Venezia, VE, IT 17/19
Mostra Gesù: la Vita. Diorami dal Vangelo / Jesus: Life Dioramas from the Gospel Exhibition telling the Life of Jesus 14/16
Salita al Calvario / Climb to Calvary, Marco / Mark (15, 20-23)
Chocolate Well - Cioccolateria Nino & Friends, Salizada San Giovanni Grisostomo 5758, 30124 Venezia, VE, IT 04/04
Lake Maggiore or Verbano ( Lagh Magior in Lombard and Piedmontese ) is a pre-Alpine lake of fluvioglacial origin in the Italian geographical region . Its shores are shared between Switzerland ( Canton Ticino ) and Italy (provinces of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola and Novara , in Piedmont , and Varese , in Lombardy ).
The name Maggiore derives from the fact that it is the largest of the lakes in the area, but among the Italian lakes it is the second in surface area after Lake Garda (as well as the second in depth after Lake Como ). In the past it was joined to Lake Mergozzo , from which it was separated due to the formation of the Fondotoce Plain .
Lake Maggiore is located at a height of approximately 193 meters above sea level . Its surface area is 212 km² , most of which, approximately 80%, is in Italian territory. It has a perimeter of 170 km and a length of 64.37 km (the largest among Italian lakes); the maximum width is 10 km and the average width is 3.9 km. The volume of water contained is equal to 37.5 billion m³ with a theoretical replacement time of approximately 4 years. The hydrographic basin is approximately 6,598 km² of which 3,229 are in Italian territory and 3,369 in Swiss territory (the ratio between the surface area of the basin and that of the lake is 31.1). The maximum altitude of the catchment basin is Punta Dufour in the Monte Rosa massif (4,633 m above sea level), while the average altitude is 1,270 m above sea level. The basin is characterized by the existence of around thirty artificial reservoirs with a collection of approximately 600 million of m³ of water which, if released simultaneously, would raise the lake level by approximately 2.5 m. The maximum depth is approximately 370 m (in the cryptodepression between Ghiffa and Porto Valtravaglia ) which is therefore 177 m below sea level.
The major tributaries are the Ticino , the Maggia , the Toce (which receives the waters of the Strona torrent and therefore of Lake Orta ) and the Tresa (in turn an emissary of Lake Lugano and fed by the Margorabbia ). The major tributaries have a different flow pattern, while Ticino and Toce, which have a catchment basin at high altitudes, reach a maximum flow in the period between May and October coinciding with the melting of snow and glaciers ; the other tributaries have a trend strongly influenced by rainfall . Minor tributaries are the Verzasca , Cannobino , San Bernardino , San Giovanni , Giona and Boesio streams . The only emissary is the Ticino which flows from the lake to Sesto Calende .
Envoys
Bardello
Boesio
Mergozzo Canal
Cannobino
Erno
Fraud of Caldè
Fraud of Porto Valtravaglia
Jonah
Maggia
Molinera
Monvallina
Riale Corto
Riale del Molino
Riale del Roddo
Riale di Casere
Rio Ballona
Rio Colmegnino (or Rio di Colmegna)
Rio Colorio
Rio dell'Asino
Rio Molinetto
Rio Valmara
Rone
San Bernardino
Saint John
San Giovanni di Bedero
Thick Forest
Stronetta
Tiasca
Ticino
Toce
Aquanegra stream
Tresa
Trigo
Versella or Varesella
Verzasca
Vevera
Geology
The origin of Lake Maggiore is partly glacial, as evidenced by the layout of the hills formed by moraine deposits of a glacial nature, but it is ascertained that the glacial excavation took place on a pre-existing river valley, the profile of the lake in fact has the typical V shape of river valleys.
Baveno pink granite was widely used as a building material in the past . Furthermore, the ancient construction uses of Angera stone are known (used for example in classical antiquity and in the medieval period), while the Caldè limestone quarries provided for many centuries the raw material for the lime with which high-rise buildings were built. Lombardy and Piedmont: thanks to the ease of transport by boat, first on the lake, then on the Milanese canals
Lake Maggiore is characterized by cold winters, but milder than inland, and moderately snowy (with average accumulations of 10 cm for each snowfall and sometimes even higher than 30 cm up to a maximum of 50 cm), summers are moderately hot, humid and stormy, the average temperature in January is around 2 degrees centigrade, with peaks of 3 degrees on the northern side of the Borromean Gulf (due to the extensive exposure to the sun), night temperatures can drop below 0, up to -10, but very rarely go below this value. In summer the average temperatures are around 22 degrees centigrade, with daytime peaks rarely exceeding 32 degrees. Proceeding towards the internal valleys the temperatures gradually become more rigid. The area is very rainy and sometimes, especially in intermediate seasons, floods can occur. The temperature of the surface waters (up to 2 meters deep) of the lake reach winter peaks of 5-6 degrees, while in summer they reach an average of 22-24 degrees.
Some statistics on Lake Maggiore . It should be noted that during lean periods the water level between Locarno and Sesto Calende can vary by 1 cm, while during floods up to 30 cm
Like all pre-Alpine lakes, Lake Maggiore is crossed, especially in the summer, by two types of prevailing winds, one which blows in the morning from the mountains towards the plain (called moscendrino as it comes from the Monte Ceneri Pass , sometimes tramontana ) and a small breeze that blows from the plain to the mountains especially during the afternoon (called inverna ). These constant winds make the pre-Alpine lakes an excellent field for practicing sports that use the wind, such as sailing and windsurfing . Lake Maggiore has some particular points, especially in the upper part, where the mountains squeeze together to form a narrow valley in which these winds blow very strongly.
Then there are other winds typical of this lake such as the winter wind , which blows from the south-west and generally brings storms, the major one , which comes from the north-east and is very dangerous as it agitates the lake a lot, the valmaggine which blows slightly from the valleys behind Locarno , the mergozzo , which blows especially at night, from the north-west
In Lake Maggiore there are many large, small or tiny islands , divided between 8 in Piedmont, 2 in Switzerland and 2 in Lombardy, for a total of 12.
Borromean Islands
Beautiful island
Isola Madre
Isola dei Pescatori (or Isola Superiore or Isola Superiore dei Pescatori)
Islet of San Giovanni
Malghera islet (or rock).
Brissago Islands
San Pancrazio Island (or Big Island)
Island of Sant'Apollinare (or Isolino)
Castles of Cannero
Isolino Partegora
Sasso Galletto
Between Stresa and Verbania there is the Borromean archipelago: Isola Madre (the largest in the lake basin), Isola Bella and Isola Superiore dei Pescatori (also known more simply as Isola dei Pescatori or Isola Superiore)
Opposite the Swiss town of Ronco sopra Ascona are the two islands of Brissago, the larger of which hosts a botanical garden.
In front of the coast of Cannero Riviera there are the three emerged rocks called Castelli di Cannero: the major rock, totally occupied today by the Vitaliana war artefact, a fortress commissioned by Count Ludovico Borromeo starting from 1518, the minor rock, on which the ruins of the so-called "prisons" stand, but in fact a small advanced tower with a falconette gunboat garrisoning the southern canal port, and finally the little rock (towards Maccagno ) of the "Melgonaro", on which only a stunted but tenacious plant grows fascinated poets and engravers such as Piero Chiara , Marco Costantini , Carlo Rapp .
Finally, we must mention the small island of San Giovanni in front of Verbania (famous because it was the residence of the orchestra director Arturo Toscanini in the seventeenth-century Palazzo Borromeo for many years ), the small island of La Malghera also known as Isola delle Bambole , among 'Isola Bella and that of the Fishermen and therefore the Isolino Partegora in the small gulf of Angera .
History:
The finds and evidence found tell us that following the actual creation of the lake, with the complete retreat of the ice, the surrounding area was inhabited by nomadic groups , who used the territory mainly as a place for hunting and supplies.
In the Chalcolithic historical period, the first residential areas were built in the immediate vicinity of the lake and from that moment there was a slow consolidation of sedentary groups .
On the shores of the lake, the Golasecca culture developed between the 9th and 4th centuries BC , a Celtic -speaking Iron Age civilization . The Golasecchians advanced as far as some areas of present-day Lombardy , only to be pushed back again to their western borders by the descent of the Celts into the Italian peninsula , probably the population of the Taurine Gauls .
The Gauls therefore had supremacy over the lake territory until the advance of the Romans who turned the Piedmont and Lombard areas back into provinces of the empire . The " Verbanus Lacus " (name given to it by the Romans, from which the nomenclature Lake Verbano will probably derive ) or " Lacus Maximus " (another name even attributed to it by Virgil ) will remain firmly in the hands of the Roman Empire . In Roman times, navigation along the lake experienced particular development, so much so that ships could descend the Ticino and thus reach Pavia , from where they could reach, thanks to the Po , as far as the Adriatic Sea . It is no coincidence that the excavations of the Angera settlement have brought to light finds that show strong connections between the lake and the upper Adriatic. This shipping line experienced particular development during the early Middle Ages , when Pavia was the capital of the Lombard kingdom first and then of the kingdom of Italy.
To arrive at a period of rebirth of the cities on the lake we had to wait until the Middle Ages , which led to the creation of villages, castles and in general a very different example of the physiognomy of inhabited places.
In this period the area around the lake, as well as numerous territories in the surroundings of Milan , passed into the hands of various families such as the Della Torre , the Visconti , the ruling house of the Habsburgs from 1713 and in particular the Borromeo family , which had enormous influence for many years on Lake Maggiore, starting from the acquisition of the fiefdom of Arona in 1445. Another very illustrious lineage that had a great influence in the medieval era is that of the Marquises Morigi or Moriggia, who received numerous territories from the Viscontis such as the degagne of San Maurizio and San Martino, the Valtravaglia which were nicknamed "Morigie lands". Over the centuries the families of Borromeo and Morigi fought bitterly for hegemony over these lands. The Borromeo themselves also had, between 1523 and 1524, actual armed clashes against Francesco II Sforza who on several occasions sent troops and armed ships against the Borromeo fortresses located on the islands of Cannero . Other noble families linked to the territory since the Middle Ages were the Besozzi , the Sessa , the Luini and the Capitanei of Locarno.
Starting from the 14th century, navigation along the lake was also exploited to transport the heavy blocks of marble coming from Candoglia and other quarries located in the surroundings of the lake towards the two main Lombard construction sites of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: the cathedral of Milan and the Charterhouse of Pavia
Fontego dei Tedeschi / Fondaco dei Tedeschi / Warehouse of the Germans, Calle del Fontego dei Tedeschi, San Marco, 30100 Venezia VE, IT 30/80
Venezia / Venice 360° - Terrazza Panoramica / Panoramic Rooftop Terrace Views 26/72
w. Campanile pendente della Chiesa di Santo Stefano / Lean Bell Tower of Church of St. Stephen, Canal Grande / Grand Canal, Campanile / Bell Tower of Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Carmini o del Carmelo / Church of St. Mary of of the Carmelite (Dorsoduro), Ponte di Rialto / Rialto Bridge, Palazzo dei Dieci Savi, Campanile della Chiesa di San Silvestro / Bell Tower of Church of St. Sylvester, Campanile della Chiesa Rettoriale di San Paolo Apostolo / Bell Tower of Rectorial Church of St. Paul of the Apostle aka San Polo, Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari / Basilica of Glorious St. Mary of the Brothers (San Polo), Campanile della Chiesa di Sant'Aponal / Bell Tower of Church of St. Apollinaris of Ravenna, Chiesa di San Nicola da Tolentino / Church of St. Nicholas of Tolentino (Santa Croce), Palazzo dei Camerlenghi
Azienda del Consorzio Trasporti Veneziano (ACTV) Linea / Line 2 Vaporetto Ride - Linee / Lines 2, 5.1, 6, 10 & N Fermata Vaporetto Zattere criss-cross Canale della Giudecca / Canal de ła Zueca / Giudecca Canal tow. San Marco-San Zaccaria 08/41
w. Top of leaning Campanile di Santo Stefano / Bell Tower of Church of St. Stephen (San Marco), Campanile di San Marco / St. Mark's Bell Tower, Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute / Basilica Church of St. Mary of Health, Chiesa di San Giorgio Maggiore / Church of St. George the Major & Campanile / Bell Tower, Chiesa di Santa Maria della Presentazione / Church of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary aka Chiesa delle Zitelle (Giudecca)
Lake Maggiore or Verbano ( Lagh Magior in Lombard and Piedmontese ) is a pre-Alpine lake of fluvioglacial origin in the Italian geographical region . Its shores are shared between Switzerland ( Canton Ticino ) and Italy (provinces of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola and Novara , in Piedmont , and Varese , in Lombardy ).
The name Maggiore derives from the fact that it is the largest of the lakes in the area, but among the Italian lakes it is the second in surface area after Lake Garda (as well as the second in depth after Lake Como ). In the past it was joined to Lake Mergozzo , from which it was separated due to the formation of the Fondotoce Plain .
Lake Maggiore is located at a height of approximately 193 meters above sea level . Its surface area is 212 km² , most of which, approximately 80%, is in Italian territory. It has a perimeter of 170 km and a length of 64.37 km (the largest among Italian lakes); the maximum width is 10 km and the average width is 3.9 km. The volume of water contained is equal to 37.5 billion m³ with a theoretical replacement time of approximately 4 years. The hydrographic basin is approximately 6,598 km² of which 3,229 are in Italian territory and 3,369 in Swiss territory (the ratio between the surface area of the basin and that of the lake is 31.1). The maximum altitude of the catchment basin is Punta Dufour in the Monte Rosa massif (4,633 m above sea level), while the average altitude is 1,270 m above sea level. The basin is characterized by the existence of around thirty artificial reservoirs with a collection of approximately 600 million of m³ of water which, if released simultaneously, would raise the lake level by approximately 2.5 m. The maximum depth is approximately 370 m (in the cryptodepression between Ghiffa and Porto Valtravaglia ) which is therefore 177 m below sea level.
The major tributaries are the Ticino , the Maggia , the Toce (which receives the waters of the Strona torrent and therefore of Lake Orta ) and the Tresa (in turn an emissary of Lake Lugano and fed by the Margorabbia ). The major tributaries have a different flow pattern, while Ticino and Toce, which have a catchment basin at high altitudes, reach a maximum flow in the period between May and October coinciding with the melting of snow and glaciers ; the other tributaries have a trend strongly influenced by rainfall . Minor tributaries are the Verzasca , Cannobino , San Bernardino , San Giovanni , Giona and Boesio streams . The only emissary is the Ticino which flows from the lake to Sesto Calende .
Envoys
Bardello
Boesio
Mergozzo Canal
Cannobino
Erno
Fraud of Caldè
Fraud of Porto Valtravaglia
Jonah
Maggia
Molinera
Monvallina
Riale Corto
Riale del Molino
Riale del Roddo
Riale di Casere
Rio Ballona
Rio Colmegnino (or Rio di Colmegna)
Rio Colorio
Rio dell'Asino
Rio Molinetto
Rio Valmara
Rone
San Bernardino
Saint John
San Giovanni di Bedero
Thick Forest
Stronetta
Tiasca
Ticino
Toce
Aquanegra stream
Tresa
Trigo
Versella or Varesella
Verzasca
Vevera
Geology
The origin of Lake Maggiore is partly glacial, as evidenced by the layout of the hills formed by moraine deposits of a glacial nature, but it is ascertained that the glacial excavation took place on a pre-existing river valley, the profile of the lake in fact has the typical V shape of river valleys.
Baveno pink granite was widely used as a building material in the past . Furthermore, the ancient construction uses of Angera stone are known (used for example in classical antiquity and in the medieval period), while the Caldè limestone quarries provided for many centuries the raw material for the lime with which high-rise buildings were built. Lombardy and Piedmont: thanks to the ease of transport by boat, first on the lake, then on the Milanese canals
Lake Maggiore is characterized by cold winters, but milder than inland, and moderately snowy (with average accumulations of 10 cm for each snowfall and sometimes even higher than 30 cm up to a maximum of 50 cm), summers are moderately hot, humid and stormy, the average temperature in January is around 2 degrees centigrade, with peaks of 3 degrees on the northern side of the Borromean Gulf (due to the extensive exposure to the sun), night temperatures can drop below 0, up to -10, but very rarely go below this value. In summer the average temperatures are around 22 degrees centigrade, with daytime peaks rarely exceeding 32 degrees. Proceeding towards the internal valleys the temperatures gradually become more rigid. The area is very rainy and sometimes, especially in intermediate seasons, floods can occur. The temperature of the surface waters (up to 2 meters deep) of the lake reach winter peaks of 5-6 degrees, while in summer they reach an average of 22-24 degrees.
Some statistics on Lake Maggiore . It should be noted that during lean periods the water level between Locarno and Sesto Calende can vary by 1 cm, while during floods up to 30 cm
Like all pre-Alpine lakes, Lake Maggiore is crossed, especially in the summer, by two types of prevailing winds, one which blows in the morning from the mountains towards the plain (called moscendrino as it comes from the Monte Ceneri Pass , sometimes tramontana ) and a small breeze that blows from the plain to the mountains especially during the afternoon (called inverna ). These constant winds make the pre-Alpine lakes an excellent field for practicing sports that use the wind, such as sailing and windsurfing . Lake Maggiore has some particular points, especially in the upper part, where the mountains squeeze together to form a narrow valley in which these winds blow very strongly.
Then there are other winds typical of this lake such as the winter wind , which blows from the south-west and generally brings storms, the major one , which comes from the north-east and is very dangerous as it agitates the lake a lot, the valmaggine which blows slightly from the valleys behind Locarno , the mergozzo , which blows especially at night, from the north-west
In Lake Maggiore there are many large, small or tiny islands , divided between 8 in Piedmont, 2 in Switzerland and 2 in Lombardy, for a total of 12.
Borromean Islands
Beautiful island
Isola Madre
Isola dei Pescatori (or Isola Superiore or Isola Superiore dei Pescatori)
Islet of San Giovanni
Malghera islet (or rock).
Brissago Islands
San Pancrazio Island (or Big Island)
Island of Sant'Apollinare (or Isolino)
Castles of Cannero
Isolino Partegora
Sasso Galletto
Between Stresa and Verbania there is the Borromean archipelago: Isola Madre (the largest in the lake basin), Isola Bella and Isola Superiore dei Pescatori (also known more simply as Isola dei Pescatori or Isola Superiore)
Opposite the Swiss town of Ronco sopra Ascona are the two islands of Brissago, the larger of which hosts a botanical garden.
In front of the coast of Cannero Riviera there are the three emerged rocks called Castelli di Cannero: the major rock, totally occupied today by the Vitaliana war artefact, a fortress commissioned by Count Ludovico Borromeo starting from 1518, the minor rock, on which the ruins of the so-called "prisons" stand, but in fact a small advanced tower with a falconette gunboat garrisoning the southern canal port, and finally the little rock (towards Maccagno ) of the "Melgonaro", on which only a stunted but tenacious plant grows fascinated poets and engravers such as Piero Chiara , Marco Costantini , Carlo Rapp .
Finally, we must mention the small island of San Giovanni in front of Verbania (famous because it was the residence of the orchestra director Arturo Toscanini in the seventeenth-century Palazzo Borromeo for many years ), the small island of La Malghera also known as Isola delle Bambole , among 'Isola Bella and that of the Fishermen and therefore the Isolino Partegora in the small gulf of Angera .
History:
The finds and evidence found tell us that following the actual creation of the lake, with the complete retreat of the ice, the surrounding area was inhabited by nomadic groups , who used the territory mainly as a place for hunting and supplies.
In the Chalcolithic historical period, the first residential areas were built in the immediate vicinity of the lake and from that moment there was a slow consolidation of sedentary groups .
On the shores of the lake, the Golasecca culture developed between the 9th and 4th centuries BC , a Celtic -speaking Iron Age civilization . The Golasecchians advanced as far as some areas of present-day Lombardy , only to be pushed back again to their western borders by the descent of the Celts into the Italian peninsula , probably the population of the Taurine Gauls .
The Gauls therefore had supremacy over the lake territory until the advance of the Romans who turned the Piedmont and Lombard areas back into provinces of the empire . The " Verbanus Lacus " (name given to it by the Romans, from which the nomenclature Lake Verbano will probably derive ) or " Lacus Maximus " (another name even attributed to it by Virgil ) will remain firmly in the hands of the Roman Empire . In Roman times, navigation along the lake experienced particular development, so much so that ships could descend the Ticino and thus reach Pavia , from where they could reach, thanks to the Po , as far as the Adriatic Sea . It is no coincidence that the excavations of the Angera settlement have brought to light finds that show strong connections between the lake and the upper Adriatic. This shipping line experienced particular development during the early Middle Ages , when Pavia was the capital of the Lombard kingdom first and then of the kingdom of Italy.
To arrive at a period of rebirth of the cities on the lake we had to wait until the Middle Ages , which led to the creation of villages, castles and in general a very different example of the physiognomy of inhabited places.
In this period the area around the lake, as well as numerous territories in the surroundings of Milan , passed into the hands of various families such as the Della Torre , the Visconti , the ruling house of the Habsburgs from 1713 and in particular the Borromeo family , which had enormous influence for many years on Lake Maggiore, starting from the acquisition of the fiefdom of Arona in 1445. Another very illustrious lineage that had a great influence in the medieval era is that of the Marquises Morigi or Moriggia, who received numerous territories from the Viscontis such as the degagne of San Maurizio and San Martino, the Valtravaglia which were nicknamed "Morigie lands". Over the centuries the families of Borromeo and Morigi fought bitterly for hegemony over these lands. The Borromeo themselves also had, between 1523 and 1524, actual armed clashes against Francesco II Sforza who on several occasions sent troops and armed ships against the Borromeo fortresses located on the islands of Cannero . Other noble families linked to the territory since the Middle Ages were the Besozzi , the Sessa , the Luini and the Capitanei of Locarno.
Starting from the 14th century, navigation along the lake was also exploited to transport the heavy blocks of marble coming from Candoglia and other quarries located in the surroundings of the lake towards the two main Lombard construction sites of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: the cathedral of Milan and the Charterhouse of Pavia
Azienda del Consorzio Trasporti Veneziano (ACTV) Linea / Line 12 / Linea Burano / Burano Line Fermata Vaporetto Fondamente Nove - Burano Ride 47/48
Torcello w. Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta / Basilica Church of Assumption of St. Mary 02/03
Chiesa della Santa Maria Maddalena in Cannaregio / Church of St. Mary Magdalene aka St. Mary of Magdala, Fondamenta de le Colonete 2205, Cannaregio, 30121 Venezia, VE, IT 12/19
Mostra Gesù: la Vita. Diorami dal Vangelo / Jesus: Life Dioramas from the Gospel Exhibition telling the Life of Jesus 09/16
Gesù celebra la Pasqua (L'Ultima Cena) / Jesus Eats the Passover Meal with his Disciples, Marco / Mark (14, 17-25)
Lake Maggiore or Verbano ( Lagh Magior in Lombard and Piedmontese ) is a pre-Alpine lake of fluvioglacial origin in the Italian geographical region . Its shores are shared between Switzerland ( Canton Ticino ) and Italy (provinces of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola and Novara , in Piedmont , and Varese , in Lombardy ).
The name Maggiore derives from the fact that it is the largest of the lakes in the area, but among the Italian lakes it is the second in surface area after Lake Garda (as well as the second in depth after Lake Como ). In the past it was joined to Lake Mergozzo , from which it was separated due to the formation of the Fondotoce Plain .
Lake Maggiore is located at a height of approximately 193 meters above sea level . Its surface area is 212 km² , most of which, approximately 80%, is in Italian territory. It has a perimeter of 170 km and a length of 64.37 km (the largest among Italian lakes); the maximum width is 10 km and the average width is 3.9 km. The volume of water contained is equal to 37.5 billion m³ with a theoretical replacement time of approximately 4 years. The hydrographic basin is approximately 6,598 km² of which 3,229 are in Italian territory and 3,369 in Swiss territory (the ratio between the surface area of the basin and that of the lake is 31.1). The maximum altitude of the catchment basin is Punta Dufour in the Monte Rosa massif (4,633 m above sea level), while the average altitude is 1,270 m above sea level. The basin is characterized by the existence of around thirty artificial reservoirs with a collection of approximately 600 million of m³ of water which, if released simultaneously, would raise the lake level by approximately 2.5 m. The maximum depth is approximately 370 m (in the cryptodepression between Ghiffa and Porto Valtravaglia ) which is therefore 177 m below sea level.
The major tributaries are the Ticino , the Maggia , the Toce (which receives the waters of the Strona torrent and therefore of Lake Orta ) and the Tresa (in turn an emissary of Lake Lugano and fed by the Margorabbia ). The major tributaries have a different flow pattern, while Ticino and Toce, which have a catchment basin at high altitudes, reach a maximum flow in the period between May and October coinciding with the melting of snow and glaciers ; the other tributaries have a trend strongly influenced by rainfall . Minor tributaries are the Verzasca , Cannobino , San Bernardino , San Giovanni , Giona and Boesio streams . The only emissary is the Ticino which flows from the lake to Sesto Calende .
Envoys
Bardello
Boesio
Mergozzo Canal
Cannobino
Erno
Fraud of Caldè
Fraud of Porto Valtravaglia
Jonah
Maggia
Molinera
Monvallina
Riale Corto
Riale del Molino
Riale del Roddo
Riale di Casere
Rio Ballona
Rio Colmegnino (or Rio di Colmegna)
Rio Colorio
Rio dell'Asino
Rio Molinetto
Rio Valmara
Rone
San Bernardino
Saint John
San Giovanni di Bedero
Thick Forest
Stronetta
Tiasca
Ticino
Toce
Aquanegra stream
Tresa
Trigo
Versella or Varesella
Verzasca
Vevera
Geology
The origin of Lake Maggiore is partly glacial, as evidenced by the layout of the hills formed by moraine deposits of a glacial nature, but it is ascertained that the glacial excavation took place on a pre-existing river valley, the profile of the lake in fact has the typical V shape of river valleys.
Baveno pink granite was widely used as a building material in the past . Furthermore, the ancient construction uses of Angera stone are known (used for example in classical antiquity and in the medieval period), while the Caldè limestone quarries provided for many centuries the raw material for the lime with which high-rise buildings were built. Lombardy and Piedmont: thanks to the ease of transport by boat, first on the lake, then on the Milanese canals
Lake Maggiore is characterized by cold winters, but milder than inland, and moderately snowy (with average accumulations of 10 cm for each snowfall and sometimes even higher than 30 cm up to a maximum of 50 cm), summers are moderately hot, humid and stormy, the average temperature in January is around 2 degrees centigrade, with peaks of 3 degrees on the northern side of the Borromean Gulf (due to the extensive exposure to the sun), night temperatures can drop below 0, up to -10, but very rarely go below this value. In summer the average temperatures are around 22 degrees centigrade, with daytime peaks rarely exceeding 32 degrees. Proceeding towards the internal valleys the temperatures gradually become more rigid. The area is very rainy and sometimes, especially in intermediate seasons, floods can occur. The temperature of the surface waters (up to 2 meters deep) of the lake reach winter peaks of 5-6 degrees, while in summer they reach an average of 22-24 degrees.
Some statistics on Lake Maggiore . It should be noted that during lean periods the water level between Locarno and Sesto Calende can vary by 1 cm, while during floods up to 30 cm
Like all pre-Alpine lakes, Lake Maggiore is crossed, especially in the summer, by two types of prevailing winds, one which blows in the morning from the mountains towards the plain (called moscendrino as it comes from the Monte Ceneri Pass , sometimes tramontana ) and a small breeze that blows from the plain to the mountains especially during the afternoon (called inverna ). These constant winds make the pre-Alpine lakes an excellent field for practicing sports that use the wind, such as sailing and windsurfing . Lake Maggiore has some particular points, especially in the upper part, where the mountains squeeze together to form a narrow valley in which these winds blow very strongly.
Then there are other winds typical of this lake such as the winter wind , which blows from the south-west and generally brings storms, the major one , which comes from the north-east and is very dangerous as it agitates the lake a lot, the valmaggine which blows slightly from the valleys behind Locarno , the mergozzo , which blows especially at night, from the north-west
In Lake Maggiore there are many large, small or tiny islands , divided between 8 in Piedmont, 2 in Switzerland and 2 in Lombardy, for a total of 12.
Borromean Islands
Beautiful island
Isola Madre
Isola dei Pescatori (or Isola Superiore or Isola Superiore dei Pescatori)
Islet of San Giovanni
Malghera islet (or rock).
Brissago Islands
San Pancrazio Island (or Big Island)
Island of Sant'Apollinare (or Isolino)
Castles of Cannero
Isolino Partegora
Sasso Galletto
Between Stresa and Verbania there is the Borromean archipelago: Isola Madre (the largest in the lake basin), Isola Bella and Isola Superiore dei Pescatori (also known more simply as Isola dei Pescatori or Isola Superiore)
Opposite the Swiss town of Ronco sopra Ascona are the two islands of Brissago, the larger of which hosts a botanical garden.
In front of the coast of Cannero Riviera there are the three emerged rocks called Castelli di Cannero: the major rock, totally occupied today by the Vitaliana war artefact, a fortress commissioned by Count Ludovico Borromeo starting from 1518, the minor rock, on which the ruins of the so-called "prisons" stand, but in fact a small advanced tower with a falconette gunboat garrisoning the southern canal port, and finally the little rock (towards Maccagno ) of the "Melgonaro", on which only a stunted but tenacious plant grows fascinated poets and engravers such as Piero Chiara , Marco Costantini , Carlo Rapp .
Finally, we must mention the small island of San Giovanni in front of Verbania (famous because it was the residence of the orchestra director Arturo Toscanini in the seventeenth-century Palazzo Borromeo for many years ), the small island of La Malghera also known as Isola delle Bambole , among 'Isola Bella and that of the Fishermen and therefore the Isolino Partegora in the small gulf of Angera .
History:
The finds and evidence found tell us that following the actual creation of the lake, with the complete retreat of the ice, the surrounding area was inhabited by nomadic groups , who used the territory mainly as a place for hunting and supplies.
In the Chalcolithic historical period, the first residential areas were built in the immediate vicinity of the lake and from that moment there was a slow consolidation of sedentary groups .
On the shores of the lake, the Golasecca culture developed between the 9th and 4th centuries BC , a Celtic -speaking Iron Age civilization . The Golasecchians advanced as far as some areas of present-day Lombardy , only to be pushed back again to their western borders by the descent of the Celts into the Italian peninsula , probably the population of the Taurine Gauls .
The Gauls therefore had supremacy over the lake territory until the advance of the Romans who turned the Piedmont and Lombard areas back into provinces of the empire . The " Verbanus Lacus " (name given to it by the Romans, from which the nomenclature Lake Verbano will probably derive ) or " Lacus Maximus " (another name even attributed to it by Virgil ) will remain firmly in the hands of the Roman Empire . In Roman times, navigation along the lake experienced particular development, so much so that ships could descend the Ticino and thus reach Pavia , from where they could reach, thanks to the Po , as far as the Adriatic Sea . It is no coincidence that the excavations of the Angera settlement have brought to light finds that show strong connections between the lake and the upper Adriatic. This shipping line experienced particular development during the early Middle Ages , when Pavia was the capital of the Lombard kingdom first and then of the kingdom of Italy.
To arrive at a period of rebirth of the cities on the lake we had to wait until the Middle Ages , which led to the creation of villages, castles and in general a very different example of the physiognomy of inhabited places.
In this period the area around the lake, as well as numerous territories in the surroundings of Milan , passed into the hands of various families such as the Della Torre , the Visconti , the ruling house of the Habsburgs from 1713 and in particular the Borromeo family , which had enormous influence for many years on Lake Maggiore, starting from the acquisition of the fiefdom of Arona in 1445. Another very illustrious lineage that had a great influence in the medieval era is that of the Marquises Morigi or Moriggia, who received numerous territories from the Viscontis such as the degagne of San Maurizio and San Martino, the Valtravaglia which were nicknamed "Morigie lands". Over the centuries the families of Borromeo and Morigi fought bitterly for hegemony over these lands. The Borromeo themselves also had, between 1523 and 1524, actual armed clashes against Francesco II Sforza who on several occasions sent troops and armed ships against the Borromeo fortresses located on the islands of Cannero . Other noble families linked to the territory since the Middle Ages were the Besozzi , the Sessa , the Luini and the Capitanei of Locarno.
Starting from the 14th century, navigation along the lake was also exploited to transport the heavy blocks of marble coming from Candoglia and other quarries located in the surroundings of the lake towards the two main Lombard construction sites of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: the cathedral of Milan and the Charterhouse of Pavia
Monastero Madre Mechitarista / Մխիթարեան Մայրավանք / Mekhitarist Mother Monastery, Isola di San Lazzaro degli Armeni, 30126 Venezia Lido VE, IT 19/57
Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo, Scala Contarini del Bovolo 4303, San Marco, 30124 Venezia, VE, IT 55/56
Facciata su Corte del Maltese con Scala a chiocciola / Maltese Courtyard Facade w. Spiral Staircase / Scala Contarini del Bovolo 06/07
Azienda del Consorzio Trasporti Veneziano (ACTV) Linea / Line 2 Vaporetto Ride - Linee / Lines 2, 5.1, 6, 10 & N Fermata Vaporetto Zattere criss-cross Canale della Giudecca / Canal de ła Zueca / Giudecca Canal tow. San Marco-San Zaccaria 06/41
w. Top of leaning Campanile di Santo Stefano / Bell Tower of Church of St. Stephen (San Marco), Campanile di San Marco / St. Mark's Bell Tower, Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute / Basilica Church of St. Mary of Health, Chiesa di San Giorgio Maggiore / Church of St. George the Major & Campanile / Bell Tower, Chiesa di Santa Maria della Presentazione / Church of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary aka Chiesa delle Zitelle (Giudecca)
Linea / Line 2 Vaporetto approaches Azienda del Consorzio Trasporti Veneziano (ACTV) Linee / Lines 2 & 20 Fermata Vaporetto San Marco-San Zaccaria", Molo / Pier B 04/06
w. Chiesa Basilica Votiva del Santissimo Redentore / Basilica Church of the Most Holy Redeemer (Giudecca), Dogana da Mar aka Punta della Dogana / Old Customs House of Venice, Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute / Basilica Church of St. Mary of Health, Palazzo della Zecca / Mint of Venice, Biblioteca Marciana / Marciana Library aka Library of St. Mark
Lake Maggiore or Verbano ( Lagh Magior in Lombard and Piedmontese ) is a pre-Alpine lake of fluvioglacial origin in the Italian geographical region . Its shores are shared between Switzerland ( Canton Ticino ) and Italy (provinces of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola and Novara , in Piedmont , and Varese , in Lombardy ).
The name Maggiore derives from the fact that it is the largest of the lakes in the area, but among the Italian lakes it is the second in surface area after Lake Garda (as well as the second in depth after Lake Como ). In the past it was joined to Lake Mergozzo , from which it was separated due to the formation of the Fondotoce Plain .
Lake Maggiore is located at a height of approximately 193 meters above sea level . Its surface area is 212 km² , most of which, approximately 80%, is in Italian territory. It has a perimeter of 170 km and a length of 64.37 km (the largest among Italian lakes); the maximum width is 10 km and the average width is 3.9 km. The volume of water contained is equal to 37.5 billion m³ with a theoretical replacement time of approximately 4 years. The hydrographic basin is approximately 6,598 km² of which 3,229 are in Italian territory and 3,369 in Swiss territory (the ratio between the surface area of the basin and that of the lake is 31.1). The maximum altitude of the catchment basin is Punta Dufour in the Monte Rosa massif (4,633 m above sea level), while the average altitude is 1,270 m above sea level. The basin is characterized by the existence of around thirty artificial reservoirs with a collection of approximately 600 million of m³ of water which, if released simultaneously, would raise the lake level by approximately 2.5 m. The maximum depth is approximately 370 m (in the cryptodepression between Ghiffa and Porto Valtravaglia ) which is therefore 177 m below sea level.
The major tributaries are the Ticino , the Maggia , the Toce (which receives the waters of the Strona torrent and therefore of Lake Orta ) and the Tresa (in turn an emissary of Lake Lugano and fed by the Margorabbia ). The major tributaries have a different flow pattern, while Ticino and Toce, which have a catchment basin at high altitudes, reach a maximum flow in the period between May and October coinciding with the melting of snow and glaciers ; the other tributaries have a trend strongly influenced by rainfall . Minor tributaries are the Verzasca , Cannobino , San Bernardino , San Giovanni , Giona and Boesio streams . The only emissary is the Ticino which flows from the lake to Sesto Calende .
Envoys
Bardello
Boesio
Mergozzo Canal
Cannobino
Erno
Fraud of Caldè
Fraud of Porto Valtravaglia
Jonah
Maggia
Molinera
Monvallina
Riale Corto
Riale del Molino
Riale del Roddo
Riale di Casere
Rio Ballona
Rio Colmegnino (or Rio di Colmegna)
Rio Colorio
Rio dell'Asino
Rio Molinetto
Rio Valmara
Rone
San Bernardino
Saint John
San Giovanni di Bedero
Thick Forest
Stronetta
Tiasca
Ticino
Toce
Aquanegra stream
Tresa
Trigo
Versella or Varesella
Verzasca
Vevera
Geology
The origin of Lake Maggiore is partly glacial, as evidenced by the layout of the hills formed by moraine deposits of a glacial nature, but it is ascertained that the glacial excavation took place on a pre-existing river valley, the profile of the lake in fact has the typical V shape of river valleys.
Baveno pink granite was widely used as a building material in the past . Furthermore, the ancient construction uses of Angera stone are known (used for example in classical antiquity and in the medieval period), while the Caldè limestone quarries provided for many centuries the raw material for the lime with which high-rise buildings were built. Lombardy and Piedmont: thanks to the ease of transport by boat, first on the lake, then on the Milanese canals
Lake Maggiore is characterized by cold winters, but milder than inland, and moderately snowy (with average accumulations of 10 cm for each snowfall and sometimes even higher than 30 cm up to a maximum of 50 cm), summers are moderately hot, humid and stormy, the average temperature in January is around 2 degrees centigrade, with peaks of 3 degrees on the northern side of the Borromean Gulf (due to the extensive exposure to the sun), night temperatures can drop below 0, up to -10, but very rarely go below this value. In summer the average temperatures are around 22 degrees centigrade, with daytime peaks rarely exceeding 32 degrees. Proceeding towards the internal valleys the temperatures gradually become more rigid. The area is very rainy and sometimes, especially in intermediate seasons, floods can occur. The temperature of the surface waters (up to 2 meters deep) of the lake reach winter peaks of 5-6 degrees, while in summer they reach an average of 22-24 degrees.
Some statistics on Lake Maggiore . It should be noted that during lean periods the water level between Locarno and Sesto Calende can vary by 1 cm, while during floods up to 30 cm
Like all pre-Alpine lakes, Lake Maggiore is crossed, especially in the summer, by two types of prevailing winds, one which blows in the morning from the mountains towards the plain (called moscendrino as it comes from the Monte Ceneri Pass , sometimes tramontana ) and a small breeze that blows from the plain to the mountains especially during the afternoon (called inverna ). These constant winds make the pre-Alpine lakes an excellent field for practicing sports that use the wind, such as sailing and windsurfing . Lake Maggiore has some particular points, especially in the upper part, where the mountains squeeze together to form a narrow valley in which these winds blow very strongly.
Then there are other winds typical of this lake such as the winter wind , which blows from the south-west and generally brings storms, the major one , which comes from the north-east and is very dangerous as it agitates the lake a lot, the valmaggine which blows slightly from the valleys behind Locarno , the mergozzo , which blows especially at night, from the north-west
In Lake Maggiore there are many large, small or tiny islands , divided between 8 in Piedmont, 2 in Switzerland and 2 in Lombardy, for a total of 12.
Borromean Islands
Beautiful island
Isola Madre
Isola dei Pescatori (or Isola Superiore or Isola Superiore dei Pescatori)
Islet of San Giovanni
Malghera islet (or rock).
Brissago Islands
San Pancrazio Island (or Big Island)
Island of Sant'Apollinare (or Isolino)
Castles of Cannero
Isolino Partegora
Sasso Galletto
Between Stresa and Verbania there is the Borromean archipelago: Isola Madre (the largest in the lake basin), Isola Bella and Isola Superiore dei Pescatori (also known more simply as Isola dei Pescatori or Isola Superiore)
Opposite the Swiss town of Ronco sopra Ascona are the two islands of Brissago, the larger of which hosts a botanical garden.
In front of the coast of Cannero Riviera there are the three emerged rocks called Castelli di Cannero: the major rock, totally occupied today by the Vitaliana war artefact, a fortress commissioned by Count Ludovico Borromeo starting from 1518, the minor rock, on which the ruins of the so-called "prisons" stand, but in fact a small advanced tower with a falconette gunboat garrisoning the southern canal port, and finally the little rock (towards Maccagno ) of the "Melgonaro", on which only a stunted but tenacious plant grows fascinated poets and engravers such as Piero Chiara , Marco Costantini , Carlo Rapp .
Finally, we must mention the small island of San Giovanni in front of Verbania (famous because it was the residence of the orchestra director Arturo Toscanini in the seventeenth-century Palazzo Borromeo for many years ), the small island of La Malghera also known as Isola delle Bambole , among 'Isola Bella and that of the Fishermen and therefore the Isolino Partegora in the small gulf of Angera .
History:
The finds and evidence found tell us that following the actual creation of the lake, with the complete retreat of the ice, the surrounding area was inhabited by nomadic groups , who used the territory mainly as a place for hunting and supplies.
In the Chalcolithic historical period, the first residential areas were built in the immediate vicinity of the lake and from that moment there was a slow consolidation of sedentary groups .
On the shores of the lake, the Golasecca culture developed between the 9th and 4th centuries BC , a Celtic -speaking Iron Age civilization . The Golasecchians advanced as far as some areas of present-day Lombardy , only to be pushed back again to their western borders by the descent of the Celts into the Italian peninsula , probably the population of the Taurine Gauls .
The Gauls therefore had supremacy over the lake territory until the advance of the Romans who turned the Piedmont and Lombard areas back into provinces of the empire . The " Verbanus Lacus " (name given to it by the Romans, from which the nomenclature Lake Verbano will probably derive ) or " Lacus Maximus " (another name even attributed to it by Virgil ) will remain firmly in the hands of the Roman Empire . In Roman times, navigation along the lake experienced particular development, so much so that ships could descend the Ticino and thus reach Pavia , from where they could reach, thanks to the Po , as far as the Adriatic Sea . It is no coincidence that the excavations of the Angera settlement have brought to light finds that show strong connections between the lake and the upper Adriatic. This shipping line experienced particular development during the early Middle Ages , when Pavia was the capital of the Lombard kingdom first and then of the kingdom of Italy.
To arrive at a period of rebirth of the cities on the lake we had to wait until the Middle Ages , which led to the creation of villages, castles and in general a very different example of the physiognomy of inhabited places.
In this period the area around the lake, as well as numerous territories in the surroundings of Milan , passed into the hands of various families such as the Della Torre , the Visconti , the ruling house of the Habsburgs from 1713 and in particular the Borromeo family , which had enormous influence for many years on Lake Maggiore, starting from the acquisition of the fiefdom of Arona in 1445. Another very illustrious lineage that had a great influence in the medieval era is that of the Marquises Morigi or Moriggia, who received numerous territories from the Viscontis such as the degagne of San Maurizio and San Martino, the Valtravaglia which were nicknamed "Morigie lands". Over the centuries the families of Borromeo and Morigi fought bitterly for hegemony over these lands. The Borromeo themselves also had, between 1523 and 1524, actual armed clashes against Francesco II Sforza who on several occasions sent troops and armed ships against the Borromeo fortresses located on the islands of Cannero . Other noble families linked to the territory since the Middle Ages were the Besozzi , the Sessa , the Luini and the Capitanei of Locarno.
Starting from the 14th century, navigation along the lake was also exploited to transport the heavy blocks of marble coming from Candoglia and other quarries located in the surroundings of the lake towards the two main Lombard construction sites of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: the cathedral of Milan and the Charterhouse of Pavia
Biegno is a fraction of the Italian municipality of Maccagno con Pino and Veddasca , and a border town with Switzerland since 1516 .
History
Biegno is a small town of ancient origin, belonging to the Pieve di Val Travaglia .
Registered in 1751 as a village of 353 inhabitants, in 1805 it reached 400 units. In the Napoleonic era , in 1809 , the neighboring Municipality of Lozzo was added to the Municipality of Biegno , which recovered its autonomy in 1816 , following the establishment of the Lombard-Veneto Kingdom .
At the unification of Italy , in 1861 , Biegno had 491 inhabitants, which stabilized for the rest of the century. Populated by 434 people in 1921 , the municipality was abolished in 1928 , and merged with the municipalities of Armio , Cadero con Graglio and Lozzo, forming the new municipality of Veddasca .
In 2014 it followed the fate of the entire municipality of Veddasca and merged into the new municipality of Maccagno con Pino and Veddasca.
Monuments and places of interest
Church of Santa Maria Nascente
Church of the Madonna degli Angeli , in Cangili di Biegno
Maccagno con Pino and Veddasca ( Maccàgn cun Pin e Vedàsca in Varese dialect ) is an Italian municipality of 2,450 inhabitants in the province of Varese in Lombardy .
It was established on 4 February 2014 as a merger of the municipalities of Maccagno , Pino sulla Sponda del Lago Maggiore and Veddasca , which took place following the outcome of a consultative referendum held in the countries involved on 1 December 2013 . The municipal headquarters was established in Maccagno.
History
The institution's founding act is constituted by regional law no. 8 of 30 January 2014, published in Supplement no. 6 of the Official Bulletin of the Lombardy Region of 3 February 2014.
In May 2014 the municipality received the zip code I-21061.
Furthermore, the three founding municipalities were themselves in two cases the result of an amalgamation process that took place in the fascist era , so much so that until 1927 the current municipal territory was divided into ten different municipalities, in existence since the Middle Ages .
The municipality is part of the Regio Insubrica working community, a cross-border cooperation body that federates some provinces of Lombardy and Piedmont and the Swiss Canton of Ticino .
Symbols
The new municipality had initially informally adopted the coat of arms and banner of Maccagno (municipal seat), and then equipped itself with its own weapon, granted by decree of the President of the Republic of 12 September 2018.
«Coat of arms of blue, on the tower of red, bricked in black, crenellated in the Ghibelline style of five pieces, open to the field, founded on the plain of green, flanked by two counter-prancing gold lions , all surmounted by three stars with eight rays of the same, placed in the band. External ornaments from the Municipality.»
The banner is a yellow cloth with a blue border.
The coat of arms brings together elements taken from the emblems of previous municipalities: the blue of the field and the red tower of Maccagno, the counter-rampant lions of Pino on the shore of Lake Maggiore and the stars of Veddasca.
Azienda del Consorzio Trasporti Veneziano (ACTV) Linea / Line 2 Vaporetto Ride - Linee / Lines 2, 5.1, 6, 10 & N Fermata Vaporetto Zattere criss-cross Canale della Giudecca / Canal de ła Zueca / Giudecca Canal tow. San Marco-San Zaccaria 23/41
w. Campanile pendente e Cupola di San Giorgio dei Greci / Church of St. George of the Greeks lean Tower and Dome, Campanile della Chiesa di San Francesco della Vigna / Bell Tower of Church of St. Francis at the Vineyard, Chiesa di Santa Maria della Pietà / Church of St. Mary of Piety, Tower of Chiesa di Sant'Antonino Martire / Church of St. Antoninus Martyr
Azienda del Consorzio Trasporti Veneziano (ACTV) Linea / Line 2 Vaporetto Ride - Linee / Lines 2, 5.1, 6, 10 & N Fermata Vaporetto Zattere criss-cross Canale della Giudecca / Canal de ła Zueca / Giudecca Canal tow. San Marco-San Zaccaria 07/41
w. Top of leaning Campanile di Santo Stefano / Bell Tower of Church of St. Stephen (San Marco), Campanile di San Marco / St. Mark's Bell Tower, Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute / Basilica Church of St. Mary of Health, Chiesa di San Giorgio Maggiore / Church of St. George the Major & Campanile / Bell Tower, Chiesa di Santa Maria della Presentazione / Church of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary aka Chiesa delle Zitelle (Giudecca)
Antico Cimitero Ebraico di Venezia / Old Jewish Cemetery in Venice, Riviera San Nicolò / Via Cipro 70, 30126 Lido Venezia VE, IT 01/16
www.visitlido.it/luoghi/cimitero-ebraico/
www.visitjewishitaly.it/listing/cemeteries-of-lido/
www.sillabe.it/it/guide-e-musei/1201-l-antico-cimitero-eb...
arte.it/guida-arte/venezia/da-vedere/monumento/antico-cim....
Torre dell'Orologio di San Marco / St. Mark's Clocktower, Piazza San Marco, 30124 Venezia VE, IT 31/51
Mori di Venezia e Campana / Moors of Venice and Bell 02/07
w. Palazzo Ducale / Doge's Palace, Chiesa di San Giorgio Maggiore / Church of St. George the Major & Campanile / Bell Tower, Campanile di San Marco / St. Mark's Bell Tower
Monastero Madre Mechitarista / Մխիթարեան Մայրավանք / Mekhitarist Mother Monastery, Isola di San Lazzaro degli Armeni, 30126 Venezia Lido VE, IT 21/57
Fontego dei Tedeschi / Fondaco dei Tedeschi / Warehouse of the Germans, Calle del Fontego dei Tedeschi, San Marco, 30100 Venezia VE, IT 47/80
Venezia / Venice 360° - Terrazza Panoramica / Panoramic Rooftop Terrace Views 43/72
w. Cupola / Dome of Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Miracoli / Church of St. Mary of the Miracles, Chiesa di San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti / Church of St. Lazarus of the Beggars, Ospedale Santi Giovanni e Paolo Venezia / Hospital of Sts. John and Paul, San Zanipoło or Zanipolo / Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo / Basilica Church of Sts. John and Paul, Chiesa di San Francesco della Vigna / Church of St. Francis at the Vineyard, Chiesa di San Lorenzo / Church of St. Lawrence, Basilica & Campanile di San Pietro di Castello / Basilica & Bell Tower of St. Peter of Castello
The Alps are the highest and most extensive mountain range that is entirely in Europe, stretching approximately 1,200 km (750 mi) across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia.
The Alpine arch extends from Nice on the western Mediterranean to Trieste on the Adriatic and Vienna at the beginning of the Pannonian Basin. The mountains were formed over tens of millions of years as the African and Eurasian tectonic plates collided. Extreme shortening caused by the event resulted in marine sedimentary rocks rising by thrusting and folding into high mountain peaks such as Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn.
Mont Blanc spans the French–Italian border, and at 4,809 m (15,778 ft) is the highest mountain in the Alps. The Alpine region area contains 128 peaks higher than 4,000 m (13,000 ft).
The altitude and size of the range affect the climate in Europe; in the mountains, precipitation levels vary greatly and climatic conditions consist of distinct zones. Wildlife such as ibex live in the higher peaks to elevations of 3,400 m (11,155 ft), and plants such as edelweiss grow in rocky areas in lower elevations as well as in higher elevations.
Evidence of human habitation in the Alps goes back to the Palaeolithic era. A mummified man ("Ötzi"), determined to be 5,000 years old, was discovered on a glacier at the Austrian–Italian border in 1991.
By the 6th century BC, the Celtic La Tène culture was well established. Hannibal notably crossed the Alps with a herd of elephants, and the Romans had settlements in the region. In 1800, Napoleon crossed one of the mountain passes with an army of 40,000. The 18th and 19th centuries saw an influx of naturalists, writers, and artists, in particular, the Romantics, followed by the golden age of alpinism as mountaineers began to ascend the peaks of the Alps.
The Alpine region has a strong cultural identity. Traditional practices such as farming, cheesemaking, and woodworking still thrive in Alpine villages. However, the tourist industry began to grow early in the 20th century and expanded significantly after World War II, eventually becoming the dominant industry by the end of the century.
The Winter Olympic Games have been hosted in the Swiss, French, Italian, Austrian and German Alps. As of 2010, the region is home to 14 million people and has 120 million annual visitors.
The valleys of the Alps have been inhabited since prehistoric times. The Alpine culture, which developed there, centers on transhumance.
Currently the Alps are divided among eight countries: France, Monaco, Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany and Slovenia. In 1991 the Alpine Convention was established to regulate this transnational area, whose area measures about 190,000 square kilometres (73,000 sq mi).
Early history (before 1200)
The Wildkirchli caves in the Appenzell Alps show traces of Neanderthal habitation (about 40,000 BCE). During the Würm glaciation (up to c. 11700 BP), the entire Alps were covered in ice. Anatomically modern humans reach the Alpine region by c. 30,000 years ago. MtDNA Haplogroup K (believed to have originated in the mid-Upper Paleolithic, between about 30,000 and 22,000 years ago, with an estimated age here of c. 12,000 years BP), is a genetic marker associated with southeastern Alpine region.
Traces of transhumance appear in the neolithic. In the Bronze Age, the Alps formed the boundary of the Urnfield and Terramare cultures. The mummy found on the Ötztal Alps, known as "Ötzi the Iceman", lived c. 3200 BC. At that stage the population in its majority had already changed from an economy based on hunting and gathering to one based on agriculture and animal husbandry. It is still an open question whether forms of pastoral mobility, such as transhumance (alpiculture), already existed in prehistory.
The earliest historical accounts date to the Roman period, mostly due to Greco-Roman ethnography, with some epigraphic evidence due to the Raetians, Lepontii and Gauls, with Ligurians and Venetii occupying the fringes in the south-west and south-east, respectively (Cisalpine Gaul) during the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. The Rock Drawings in Valcamonica date to this period. A few details have come down to modern scholars of the conquest of many of the Alpine tribes by Augustus, as well as Hannibal's battles across the Alps. Most of the local Gallic tribes allied themselves with the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War, for the duration of which Rome lost control over most of Northern Italy. The Roman conquest of Italy was only complete after the Roman victory over Carthage, by the 190s BC.
Between 35 and 6 BC, the Alpine region was gradually integrated into the expanding Roman Empire. The contemporary monument Tropaeum Alpium in La Turbie celebrates the victory won by the Romans over 46 tribes in these mountains. The subsequent construction of roads over the Alpine passes first permitted southern and northern Roman settlements in the Alps to be connected, and eventually integrated the inhabitants of the Alps into the culture of the Empire. The upper Rhône Valley or Vallis Poenina fell to the Romans after a battle at Octodurus (Martigny) in 57 BC. Aosta was founded in 25 BC as Augusta Praetoria Salassorum in the former territory of the Salassi. Raetia was conquered in 15 BC.
With the division of the Roman Empire and the collapse of its Western part in the fourth and fifth centuries, power relations in the Alpine region reverted to their local dimensions. Often dioceses became important centres. While in Italy and Southern France, dioceses in the Western Alps were established early (beginning in the fourth century) and resulted in numerous small sees, in the Eastern Alps such foundations continued into the thirteenth century and the dioceses were usually larger. New monasteries in the mountain valleys also promoted the Christianisation of the population.[3] In that period the core area of supra-regional political powers was mainly situated north of the Alps, first in the Carolingian Empire and later, after its division, in France and the Holy Roman Empire. The German emperors, who received the imperial investiture from the Pope in Rome between the ninth and the fifteenth centuries, had to cross the Alps along with their entourages.
In the 7th century, much of the Eastern Alps were settled by Slavs. Between the 7th and 9th century, the Slavic principality of Carantania existed as one of the few non-Germanic polities in the Alps. The Alpine Slavs, who inhabited the majority of present-day Austria and Slovenia, were gradually Germanized from the 9th to the 14th century. The modern Slovenes are their southernmost descendants.
The successive emigration and occupation of the Alpine region by the Alemanni from the 6th to the 8th centuries are, too, known only in outline. For "mainstream" history, the Frankish and later the Habsburg empire, the Alps had strategic importance as an obstacle, not as a landscape, and the Alpine passes have consequently had great significance militarily.
Between 889 and 973, a community of Muslim raiders operating from their base of Fraxinetum, on the coast of Provence, blocked the Alpine passes to Christian travellers until their expulsion by Christian forces led by Arduin Glaber in 973, at which point transalpine trade was able to resume.
Not until the final breakup of the Carolingian Empire in the 10th and 11th centuries is it possible to trace out the local history of different parts of the Alps, notably with the High Medieval Walser migrations.
Later Medieval to Early Modern Era (1200 to 1900)
The French historian Fernand Braudel, in his famous volume on Mediterranean civilisation, describes the Alps as "an exceptional range of mountains from the point of view of resources, collective disciplines, the quality of its human population and the number of good roads." This remarkable human presence in the Alpine region came into being with the population growth and agrarian expansion of the High Middle Ages. At first a mixed form of agriculture and animal husbandry dominated the economy. Then, from the Late Middle Ages onwards, cattle tended to replace sheep as the dominant animals. In a few regions of the northern slope of the Alps, cattle farming became increasingly oriented toward long-range markets and substituted agriculture completely. At the same time other types of interregional and transalpine exchange were growing in significance. The most important pass was the Brenner, which could accommodate cart traffic beginning in the fifteenth century. In the Western and Central Alps, the passes were practicable only by pack animals up to the period around 1800.
The process of state formation in the Alps was driven by the proximity to focal areas of European conflicts such as in the Italian wars of 1494–1559. In that period the socio-political structures of Alpine regions drifted apart. One can identify three different developmental models: one of princely centralization (Western Alps), a local-communal one (Switzerland) and an intermediate one, characterised by a powerful nobility (Eastern Alps).
Until the late nineteenth century many Alpine valleys remained mainly shaped by agrarian and pastoral activities. Population growth favoured the intensification of land use and the spread of corn, potato and cheese production. The shorter growing season at higher altitudes did not seem to be an impediment until around 1700. Later, however, it became a major obstacle to the further intensification of agriculture, especially in comparison to the surrounding lowlands where land productivity increased rapidly. Inside the Alpine region there was a striking difference between the western and central parts, which were dominated by small farming establishments, and the eastern part, which were characterised by medium or big farms. Migration to the urbanised zones of the surrounding areas was already apparent before 1500 and was often temporary. In the Alps themselves, urbanisation was slow.
Central Alps
In the Central Alps the chief event, on the northern side of the chain, is the gradual formation from 1291 to 1516 of the Swiss Confederacy, at least so far as regards the mountain cantons, and with especial reference to the independent confederations of the Grisons and the Valais, which only became full members of the Confederation in 1803 and 1815 respectively. The attraction of the south was too strong for both the Forest Cantons and the Grisons, so that both tried to secure, and actually did secure, various bits of the Milanese.
The Gotthard Pass was known in antiquity as Adula Mons, but it was not one of the important Alpine passes due to the impassability of the Schöllenen Gorge north of the pass. This changed dramatically with the construction of the so-called Devil's Bridge by the year 1230. Almost immediately, in 1231, the formerly unimportant valley of Uri was granted imperial immediacy and became the main route connecting Germany and Italy. Also in 1230, a hospice dedicated to Gotthard of Hildesheim was built on the pass to accommodate the pilgrims to Rome which now took this route. The sudden strategical importance for the European powers gained by what is now Central Switzerland was an important factor in the formation of the Old Swiss Confederacy beginning in the late 13th century.
In the 15th century, the Forest Cantons won the Valle Leventina as well as Bellinzona and the Valle di Blenio (though the Valle d'Ossola was held for a time only). Blenio was added to the Val Bregaglia (which had been given to the bishop of Coire in 960 by the emperor Otto I), along with the valleys of Valle Mesolcina and of Val Poschiavo.
Western Alps
Further information: County of Savoy and Duchy of Savoy
In the case of the Western Alps (excluding the part from the chain of Mont Blanc to the Simplon Pass, which followed the fortunes of the Valais), a prolonged struggle for control took place between the feudal lords of Savoy, the Dauphiné and Provence. In 1349 the Dauphiné fell to France, while in 1388 the county of Nice passed from Provence to the house of Savoy, which also then held Piedmont as well as other lands on the Italian side of the Alps. The struggle henceforth was limited to France and the house of Savoy, but little by little France succeeded in pushing back the house of Savoy across the Alps, forcing it to become a purely Italian power.
One turning-point in the rivalry was the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), by which France ceded to Savoy the Alpine districts of Exilles, Bardonnèche (Bardonecchia), Oulx, Fenestrelles, and Châtean Dauphin, while Savoy handed over to France the valley of Barcelonnette, situated on the western slope of the Alps and forming part of the county of Nice. The final act in this long-continued struggle took place in 1860, when France obtained by cession the rest of the county of Nice and also Savoy, thus remaining sole ruler on the western slope of the Alps.
Eastern Alps
The Eastern Alps had been included in the Frankish Empire since the 9th century. From the High Middle Ages and throughout the Early Modern era, the political history of the Eastern Alps can be considered almost totally in terms of the advance or retreat of the house of Habsburg. The Habsburgers' original home was in the lower valley of the Aar, at Habsburg castle. They lost that district to the Swiss in 1415, as they had previously lost various other sections of what is now Switzerland. But they built an impressive empire in the Eastern Alps, where they defeated numerous minor dynasties. They won the duchy of Austria with Styria in 1282, Carinthia and Carniola in 1335, Tirol in 1363, and the Vorarlberg in bits from 1375 to 1523, not to speak of minor "rectifications" of frontiers on the northern slope of the Alps. But on the other slope their progress was slower, and finally less successful. It is true that they won Primiero quite early (1373), as well as (1517) the Ampezzo Valley and several towns to the south of Trento. In 1797 they obtained Venetia proper, in 1803 the secularized bishoprics of Trento and Brixen (as well as that of Salzburg, more to the north), besides the Valtellina region, and in 1815 the Bergamasque valleys, while the Milanese had belonged to them since 1535. But in 1859 they lost to the house of Savoy both the Milanese and the Bergamasca, and in 1866 Venetia proper also, so that the Trentino was then their chief possession on the southern slope of the Alps. The gain of the Milanese in 1859 by the future king of Italy (1861) meant that Italy then won the valley of Livigno (between the Upper Engadine and Bormio), which is the only important bit it holds on the non-Italian slope of the Alps, besides the county of Tenda (obtained in 1575, and not lost in 1860), with the heads of certain glens in the Maritime Alps, reserved in 1860 for reasons connected with hunting. Following World War I and the demise of Austria-Hungary, there were important territorial changes in the Eastern Alps.
Modern history (1900 to present)
Population
For the modern era it is possible to offer a quantitative estimate of the population of the Alpine region. Within the area delimited by the Alpine Convention, there were about 3.1 million inhabitants in 1500, 5.8 in 1800, 8.5 in 1900 and 13.9 in 2000.
Sixteenth-century scholars, especially those from cities near the Alps, began to show a greater interest for the mountain phenomena. Their curiosity was also aroused by important questions of the genesis of the earth and the interpretation of the Bible. By the eighteenth century, a distinctive enthusiasm for nature and the Alps spread in European society. An example thereof is the famous multi-volume work "Voyages dans les Alpes" (1779–1796) by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure. In his work the naturalist from Geneva described, among other things, his 1787 ascent of Mont Blanc at 4800 metres above sea level. This new interest is also reflected in literature, most notably by Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s best-selling romantic novel "Julie, ou la nouvelle Heloise" (1761). These cultural developments resulted in a growth of interest in the Alps as a travel destination and laid the foundation for modern tourism. As Europe was getting increasingly more urbanised, the Alps distinguished themselves as a place of nature. During the colonial expansion many mountains in Asia, Australia and America were now named after the Alps as well.
During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries several important changes occurred. First, the Alpine population was now characterised by a particular growth rate, which was increasingly differentiated from that of the more dynamic non-mountain areas. Second, the migratory fluxes became ever more important and ever more directed toward extra-European destinations. Beginning in the early twentieth century, several regions were affected by depopulation. This process amplified the imbalanced distribution of the population within the Alps, because the urban centres at lower altitudes experienced strong growth and clearly became the most important dynamic localities during the twentieth century.
Economy
The economy showed many signs of change too. First of all, the agriculture sector started to lose importance, and sought to survive by introducing specialised crops in valley bottoms and reinforcing cattle-raising at higher altitudes. This profound transformation was obviously due to the spread of industrialisation in Europe during the nineteenth century, which had its impact on the Alps, directly or indirectly. On the one hand, activities such as iron manufacturing, which had become prominent during the early modern era, reached their limits due to transportation costs and the increasing scale of business operations. On the other hand, at the turn of the twentieth century, new opportunities emerged for the manufacturing sector, due largely to electric power, one among the main innovations of the second industrial revolution. Abundant water and steep slopes made the Alps an ideal environment for the production of hydroelectric power. Hence many industrial sites appeared there.
However, it was undoubtedly the service sector that experienced the most important new development within the Alpine economy: the rapid rise of tourism. The first phase was dominated by summertime visits and, by about 1850, the expansion of Alpine health resorts and spas. Later, tourism started to shift to the winter season, particularly after the introduction of ski-lifts in early twentieth century. For a long time, transit traffic and trade had been an essential part of the service sector in the Alps. The traditional routes and activities began to face strong competition from the construction of railway lines and tunnels such as the Semmering (1854), the Brenner (1867), the Fréjus/Mont-Cenis (1871), the Gotthard (1882), the Simplon (1906) and the Tauern (1909). In 2016 opened the 57 km long Gotthard Base Tunnel. With a maximum elevation of only 549 metres above sea level, it is the first flat direct route through the Alpine barrier.
In general, it is noteworthy that even if modern industry – tourism, the railway and later the highway system – represented opportunities for the Alps, complementing its traditional openness to new challenges, it also produced negative consequences, such as the human impact on the environment.
Political history
Like other parts of Europe, the Alpine region was affected by the formation of the nation states that produced tensions between various groups and had consequences for border areas. In these regions, the coercive power of the state was felt much more strongly that it had been before. Borders lost their permeability and now bisected areas formerly characterised by a shared sense of community and ongoing exchanges. During World War I the eastern Alpine region was one of the epicentres of the conflict.
After World War II, the Alps entered a new phase. At one and the same time, regional identities were reinforced and a common Alpine identity was constructed. A remarkable step was made in 1991 with the signing of the Alpine Convention between all Alpine countries and the European Union. This process was strengthened by the appearance of a new set of cultural values for the Alps. In the nineteenth century, there had been a tension between the romantic advocates of the "sacredness" of the Alpine peaks (such as John Ruskin), and modern mountain climbers (such as Leslie Stephen), who promoted the notion of the Alps as the "playground of Europe". In the twentieth century, the mountains acquired a clearly positive, iconic, status as places unsullied by undesirable urban influences such as pollution, noise and so on.
Tourism and alpinism
The fascination that the Alps exerted on the British has to be related to the general increase in charm and appeal of this mountain range during the eighteenth century. Yet British particularities were involved as well. Traditionally, many Englishmen felt the attraction of the Mediterranean, which was associated with the practice of the Grand Tour, and thus had to cross Europe and the Alps to reach it. From a place of transit, the Alps turned into a tourist destination as the flow of people and means of transport increased. Moreover, with the invention of new sports the Alps became an area of experimental training. The Alps offered many mountain climbers a degree of difficulty that fit their expectations.
The convergence of these phenomena granted to Alpine tourism a central position. It intensified from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards and, in spite of fluctuations, would never lose its importance. Railway companies, travel guides, travelogues and travel agents joined forces to make the Alps a prestigious tourist destination. With Thomas Cook in particular, the Alps appeared, as early as 1861, in the catalog of tourist offers and were instrumental in the establishment of a "truly international industry" of tourism. This industry developed the infrastructure: railway lines, hotels and other services such as casinos, promenades, improvements, and funiculars.
The conquest of the Alps by British tourists was achieved along with their domestication and with the passionate participation of local, regional and national élites, be they political, economic or cultural. Leslie Stephen, in a best-selling book first published in 1871, defined the Alps as "the Playground of Europe". The book highlights the incredible success of the mountains but it also reflects the tensions that emerged among their visitors. There was a clash between the "real enthusiasts", sensitive to beauty, and the "flock of ordinary tourists" sticking to their customs and comforts.
During the twentieth century, then, the Alps were involved in the globalisation of tourism, a process that caused the multiplication of its destinations. However, in the British population these mountains retained an undeniable attraction. In fact, the British continued to view winter sports in particular (such as skiing, skating, bobsleigh, curling) as significant grounds for justifying their travel and their perpetuation of a unique culture. The personalities of Gavin de Beer and Arnold Lunn represent this attitude through a prolific interpretation of this mountain range from every possible perspective. Indeed, the British have never ceased to love and be attracted to the Alps. This is not likely to end soon, if the advertisements and presentations of the major Alpine resorts that intersperse the Sunday editions of the major newspapers are any indicator.
Linguistic history
Further information: Linguistic geography of Switzerland
The Alps are at the crossroads of the French, Italian, German and South Slavic linguistic sprachraums. They also act as a linguistic refugium, preserving archaic dialects such as Romansh, Walser German or Romance Lombardic. Extinct languages known to have been spoken in the Alpine region include Rhaetic, Lepontic, Ligurian and Langobardic.
As a result of the complicated history of the Alpine region, the native language and the national feelings of the inhabitants do not always correspond to the current international borders. The Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol region, which was annexed by Italy after World War I, has a German-speaking majority in the northern province of South Tyrol. There are Walser German speakers to found in northern Italy near the Swiss border. There are some French and Franco-Provencal-speaking districts in the Italian Aosta Valley, while there are clusters of Slovene-speakers in the Italian portion of the Julian Alps, in the Resia Valley (where the archaic Resian dialect of Slovene is still spoken) and in the mountain district known as Venetian Slovenia.
The Alps are the highest and most extensive mountain range that is entirely in Europe, stretching approximately 1,200 km (750 mi) across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia.
The Alpine arch extends from Nice on the western Mediterranean to Trieste on the Adriatic and Vienna at the beginning of the Pannonian Basin. The mountains were formed over tens of millions of years as the African and Eurasian tectonic plates collided. Extreme shortening caused by the event resulted in marine sedimentary rocks rising by thrusting and folding into high mountain peaks such as Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn.
Mont Blanc spans the French–Italian border, and at 4,809 m (15,778 ft) is the highest mountain in the Alps. The Alpine region area contains 128 peaks higher than 4,000 m (13,000 ft).
The altitude and size of the range affect the climate in Europe; in the mountains, precipitation levels vary greatly and climatic conditions consist of distinct zones. Wildlife such as ibex live in the higher peaks to elevations of 3,400 m (11,155 ft), and plants such as edelweiss grow in rocky areas in lower elevations as well as in higher elevations.
Evidence of human habitation in the Alps goes back to the Palaeolithic era. A mummified man ("Ötzi"), determined to be 5,000 years old, was discovered on a glacier at the Austrian–Italian border in 1991.
By the 6th century BC, the Celtic La Tène culture was well established. Hannibal notably crossed the Alps with a herd of elephants, and the Romans had settlements in the region. In 1800, Napoleon crossed one of the mountain passes with an army of 40,000. The 18th and 19th centuries saw an influx of naturalists, writers, and artists, in particular, the Romantics, followed by the golden age of alpinism as mountaineers began to ascend the peaks of the Alps.
The Alpine region has a strong cultural identity. Traditional practices such as farming, cheesemaking, and woodworking still thrive in Alpine villages. However, the tourist industry began to grow early in the 20th century and expanded significantly after World War II, eventually becoming the dominant industry by the end of the century.
The Winter Olympic Games have been hosted in the Swiss, French, Italian, Austrian and German Alps. As of 2010, the region is home to 14 million people and has 120 million annual visitors.
The valleys of the Alps have been inhabited since prehistoric times. The Alpine culture, which developed there, centers on transhumance.
Currently the Alps are divided among eight countries: France, Monaco, Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany and Slovenia. In 1991 the Alpine Convention was established to regulate this transnational area, whose area measures about 190,000 square kilometres (73,000 sq mi).
Early history (before 1200)
The Wildkirchli caves in the Appenzell Alps show traces of Neanderthal habitation (about 40,000 BCE). During the Würm glaciation (up to c. 11700 BP), the entire Alps were covered in ice. Anatomically modern humans reach the Alpine region by c. 30,000 years ago. MtDNA Haplogroup K (believed to have originated in the mid-Upper Paleolithic, between about 30,000 and 22,000 years ago, with an estimated age here of c. 12,000 years BP), is a genetic marker associated with southeastern Alpine region.
Traces of transhumance appear in the neolithic. In the Bronze Age, the Alps formed the boundary of the Urnfield and Terramare cultures. The mummy found on the Ötztal Alps, known as "Ötzi the Iceman", lived c. 3200 BC. At that stage the population in its majority had already changed from an economy based on hunting and gathering to one based on agriculture and animal husbandry. It is still an open question whether forms of pastoral mobility, such as transhumance (alpiculture), already existed in prehistory.
The earliest historical accounts date to the Roman period, mostly due to Greco-Roman ethnography, with some epigraphic evidence due to the Raetians, Lepontii and Gauls, with Ligurians and Venetii occupying the fringes in the south-west and south-east, respectively (Cisalpine Gaul) during the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. The Rock Drawings in Valcamonica date to this period. A few details have come down to modern scholars of the conquest of many of the Alpine tribes by Augustus, as well as Hannibal's battles across the Alps. Most of the local Gallic tribes allied themselves with the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War, for the duration of which Rome lost control over most of Northern Italy. The Roman conquest of Italy was only complete after the Roman victory over Carthage, by the 190s BC.
Between 35 and 6 BC, the Alpine region was gradually integrated into the expanding Roman Empire. The contemporary monument Tropaeum Alpium in La Turbie celebrates the victory won by the Romans over 46 tribes in these mountains. The subsequent construction of roads over the Alpine passes first permitted southern and northern Roman settlements in the Alps to be connected, and eventually integrated the inhabitants of the Alps into the culture of the Empire. The upper Rhône Valley or Vallis Poenina fell to the Romans after a battle at Octodurus (Martigny) in 57 BC. Aosta was founded in 25 BC as Augusta Praetoria Salassorum in the former territory of the Salassi. Raetia was conquered in 15 BC.
With the division of the Roman Empire and the collapse of its Western part in the fourth and fifth centuries, power relations in the Alpine region reverted to their local dimensions. Often dioceses became important centres. While in Italy and Southern France, dioceses in the Western Alps were established early (beginning in the fourth century) and resulted in numerous small sees, in the Eastern Alps such foundations continued into the thirteenth century and the dioceses were usually larger. New monasteries in the mountain valleys also promoted the Christianisation of the population.[3] In that period the core area of supra-regional political powers was mainly situated north of the Alps, first in the Carolingian Empire and later, after its division, in France and the Holy Roman Empire. The German emperors, who received the imperial investiture from the Pope in Rome between the ninth and the fifteenth centuries, had to cross the Alps along with their entourages.
In the 7th century, much of the Eastern Alps were settled by Slavs. Between the 7th and 9th century, the Slavic principality of Carantania existed as one of the few non-Germanic polities in the Alps. The Alpine Slavs, who inhabited the majority of present-day Austria and Slovenia, were gradually Germanized from the 9th to the 14th century. The modern Slovenes are their southernmost descendants.
The successive emigration and occupation of the Alpine region by the Alemanni from the 6th to the 8th centuries are, too, known only in outline. For "mainstream" history, the Frankish and later the Habsburg empire, the Alps had strategic importance as an obstacle, not as a landscape, and the Alpine passes have consequently had great significance militarily.
Between 889 and 973, a community of Muslim raiders operating from their base of Fraxinetum, on the coast of Provence, blocked the Alpine passes to Christian travellers until their expulsion by Christian forces led by Arduin Glaber in 973, at which point transalpine trade was able to resume.
Not until the final breakup of the Carolingian Empire in the 10th and 11th centuries is it possible to trace out the local history of different parts of the Alps, notably with the High Medieval Walser migrations.
Later Medieval to Early Modern Era (1200 to 1900)
The French historian Fernand Braudel, in his famous volume on Mediterranean civilisation, describes the Alps as "an exceptional range of mountains from the point of view of resources, collective disciplines, the quality of its human population and the number of good roads." This remarkable human presence in the Alpine region came into being with the population growth and agrarian expansion of the High Middle Ages. At first a mixed form of agriculture and animal husbandry dominated the economy. Then, from the Late Middle Ages onwards, cattle tended to replace sheep as the dominant animals. In a few regions of the northern slope of the Alps, cattle farming became increasingly oriented toward long-range markets and substituted agriculture completely. At the same time other types of interregional and transalpine exchange were growing in significance. The most important pass was the Brenner, which could accommodate cart traffic beginning in the fifteenth century. In the Western and Central Alps, the passes were practicable only by pack animals up to the period around 1800.
The process of state formation in the Alps was driven by the proximity to focal areas of European conflicts such as in the Italian wars of 1494–1559. In that period the socio-political structures of Alpine regions drifted apart. One can identify three different developmental models: one of princely centralization (Western Alps), a local-communal one (Switzerland) and an intermediate one, characterised by a powerful nobility (Eastern Alps).
Until the late nineteenth century many Alpine valleys remained mainly shaped by agrarian and pastoral activities. Population growth favoured the intensification of land use and the spread of corn, potato and cheese production. The shorter growing season at higher altitudes did not seem to be an impediment until around 1700. Later, however, it became a major obstacle to the further intensification of agriculture, especially in comparison to the surrounding lowlands where land productivity increased rapidly. Inside the Alpine region there was a striking difference between the western and central parts, which were dominated by small farming establishments, and the eastern part, which were characterised by medium or big farms. Migration to the urbanised zones of the surrounding areas was already apparent before 1500 and was often temporary. In the Alps themselves, urbanisation was slow.
Central Alps
In the Central Alps the chief event, on the northern side of the chain, is the gradual formation from 1291 to 1516 of the Swiss Confederacy, at least so far as regards the mountain cantons, and with especial reference to the independent confederations of the Grisons and the Valais, which only became full members of the Confederation in 1803 and 1815 respectively. The attraction of the south was too strong for both the Forest Cantons and the Grisons, so that both tried to secure, and actually did secure, various bits of the Milanese.
The Gotthard Pass was known in antiquity as Adula Mons, but it was not one of the important Alpine passes due to the impassability of the Schöllenen Gorge north of the pass. This changed dramatically with the construction of the so-called Devil's Bridge by the year 1230. Almost immediately, in 1231, the formerly unimportant valley of Uri was granted imperial immediacy and became the main route connecting Germany and Italy. Also in 1230, a hospice dedicated to Gotthard of Hildesheim was built on the pass to accommodate the pilgrims to Rome which now took this route. The sudden strategical importance for the European powers gained by what is now Central Switzerland was an important factor in the formation of the Old Swiss Confederacy beginning in the late 13th century.
In the 15th century, the Forest Cantons won the Valle Leventina as well as Bellinzona and the Valle di Blenio (though the Valle d'Ossola was held for a time only). Blenio was added to the Val Bregaglia (which had been given to the bishop of Coire in 960 by the emperor Otto I), along with the valleys of Valle Mesolcina and of Val Poschiavo.
Western Alps
Further information: County of Savoy and Duchy of Savoy
In the case of the Western Alps (excluding the part from the chain of Mont Blanc to the Simplon Pass, which followed the fortunes of the Valais), a prolonged struggle for control took place between the feudal lords of Savoy, the Dauphiné and Provence. In 1349 the Dauphiné fell to France, while in 1388 the county of Nice passed from Provence to the house of Savoy, which also then held Piedmont as well as other lands on the Italian side of the Alps. The struggle henceforth was limited to France and the house of Savoy, but little by little France succeeded in pushing back the house of Savoy across the Alps, forcing it to become a purely Italian power.
One turning-point in the rivalry was the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), by which France ceded to Savoy the Alpine districts of Exilles, Bardonnèche (Bardonecchia), Oulx, Fenestrelles, and Châtean Dauphin, while Savoy handed over to France the valley of Barcelonnette, situated on the western slope of the Alps and forming part of the county of Nice. The final act in this long-continued struggle took place in 1860, when France obtained by cession the rest of the county of Nice and also Savoy, thus remaining sole ruler on the western slope of the Alps.
Eastern Alps
The Eastern Alps had been included in the Frankish Empire since the 9th century. From the High Middle Ages and throughout the Early Modern era, the political history of the Eastern Alps can be considered almost totally in terms of the advance or retreat of the house of Habsburg. The Habsburgers' original home was in the lower valley of the Aar, at Habsburg castle. They lost that district to the Swiss in 1415, as they had previously lost various other sections of what is now Switzerland. But they built an impressive empire in the Eastern Alps, where they defeated numerous minor dynasties. They won the duchy of Austria with Styria in 1282, Carinthia and Carniola in 1335, Tirol in 1363, and the Vorarlberg in bits from 1375 to 1523, not to speak of minor "rectifications" of frontiers on the northern slope of the Alps. But on the other slope their progress was slower, and finally less successful. It is true that they won Primiero quite early (1373), as well as (1517) the Ampezzo Valley and several towns to the south of Trento. In 1797 they obtained Venetia proper, in 1803 the secularized bishoprics of Trento and Brixen (as well as that of Salzburg, more to the north), besides the Valtellina region, and in 1815 the Bergamasque valleys, while the Milanese had belonged to them since 1535. But in 1859 they lost to the house of Savoy both the Milanese and the Bergamasca, and in 1866 Venetia proper also, so that the Trentino was then their chief possession on the southern slope of the Alps. The gain of the Milanese in 1859 by the future king of Italy (1861) meant that Italy then won the valley of Livigno (between the Upper Engadine and Bormio), which is the only important bit it holds on the non-Italian slope of the Alps, besides the county of Tenda (obtained in 1575, and not lost in 1860), with the heads of certain glens in the Maritime Alps, reserved in 1860 for reasons connected with hunting. Following World War I and the demise of Austria-Hungary, there were important territorial changes in the Eastern Alps.
Modern history (1900 to present)
Population
For the modern era it is possible to offer a quantitative estimate of the population of the Alpine region. Within the area delimited by the Alpine Convention, there were about 3.1 million inhabitants in 1500, 5.8 in 1800, 8.5 in 1900 and 13.9 in 2000.
Sixteenth-century scholars, especially those from cities near the Alps, began to show a greater interest for the mountain phenomena. Their curiosity was also aroused by important questions of the genesis of the earth and the interpretation of the Bible. By the eighteenth century, a distinctive enthusiasm for nature and the Alps spread in European society. An example thereof is the famous multi-volume work "Voyages dans les Alpes" (1779–1796) by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure. In his work the naturalist from Geneva described, among other things, his 1787 ascent of Mont Blanc at 4800 metres above sea level. This new interest is also reflected in literature, most notably by Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s best-selling romantic novel "Julie, ou la nouvelle Heloise" (1761). These cultural developments resulted in a growth of interest in the Alps as a travel destination and laid the foundation for modern tourism. As Europe was getting increasingly more urbanised, the Alps distinguished themselves as a place of nature. During the colonial expansion many mountains in Asia, Australia and America were now named after the Alps as well.
During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries several important changes occurred. First, the Alpine population was now characterised by a particular growth rate, which was increasingly differentiated from that of the more dynamic non-mountain areas. Second, the migratory fluxes became ever more important and ever more directed toward extra-European destinations. Beginning in the early twentieth century, several regions were affected by depopulation. This process amplified the imbalanced distribution of the population within the Alps, because the urban centres at lower altitudes experienced strong growth and clearly became the most important dynamic localities during the twentieth century.
Economy
The economy showed many signs of change too. First of all, the agriculture sector started to lose importance, and sought to survive by introducing specialised crops in valley bottoms and reinforcing cattle-raising at higher altitudes. This profound transformation was obviously due to the spread of industrialisation in Europe during the nineteenth century, which had its impact on the Alps, directly or indirectly. On the one hand, activities such as iron manufacturing, which had become prominent during the early modern era, reached their limits due to transportation costs and the increasing scale of business operations. On the other hand, at the turn of the twentieth century, new opportunities emerged for the manufacturing sector, due largely to electric power, one among the main innovations of the second industrial revolution. Abundant water and steep slopes made the Alps an ideal environment for the production of hydroelectric power. Hence many industrial sites appeared there.
However, it was undoubtedly the service sector that experienced the most important new development within the Alpine economy: the rapid rise of tourism. The first phase was dominated by summertime visits and, by about 1850, the expansion of Alpine health resorts and spas. Later, tourism started to shift to the winter season, particularly after the introduction of ski-lifts in early twentieth century. For a long time, transit traffic and trade had been an essential part of the service sector in the Alps. The traditional routes and activities began to face strong competition from the construction of railway lines and tunnels such as the Semmering (1854), the Brenner (1867), the Fréjus/Mont-Cenis (1871), the Gotthard (1882), the Simplon (1906) and the Tauern (1909). In 2016 opened the 57 km long Gotthard Base Tunnel. With a maximum elevation of only 549 metres above sea level, it is the first flat direct route through the Alpine barrier.
In general, it is noteworthy that even if modern industry – tourism, the railway and later the highway system – represented opportunities for the Alps, complementing its traditional openness to new challenges, it also produced negative consequences, such as the human impact on the environment.
Political history
Like other parts of Europe, the Alpine region was affected by the formation of the nation states that produced tensions between various groups and had consequences for border areas. In these regions, the coercive power of the state was felt much more strongly that it had been before. Borders lost their permeability and now bisected areas formerly characterised by a shared sense of community and ongoing exchanges. During World War I the eastern Alpine region was one of the epicentres of the conflict.
After World War II, the Alps entered a new phase. At one and the same time, regional identities were reinforced and a common Alpine identity was constructed. A remarkable step was made in 1991 with the signing of the Alpine Convention between all Alpine countries and the European Union. This process was strengthened by the appearance of a new set of cultural values for the Alps. In the nineteenth century, there had been a tension between the romantic advocates of the "sacredness" of the Alpine peaks (such as John Ruskin), and modern mountain climbers (such as Leslie Stephen), who promoted the notion of the Alps as the "playground of Europe". In the twentieth century, the mountains acquired a clearly positive, iconic, status as places unsullied by undesirable urban influences such as pollution, noise and so on.
Tourism and alpinism
The fascination that the Alps exerted on the British has to be related to the general increase in charm and appeal of this mountain range during the eighteenth century. Yet British particularities were involved as well. Traditionally, many Englishmen felt the attraction of the Mediterranean, which was associated with the practice of the Grand Tour, and thus had to cross Europe and the Alps to reach it. From a place of transit, the Alps turned into a tourist destination as the flow of people and means of transport increased. Moreover, with the invention of new sports the Alps became an area of experimental training. The Alps offered many mountain climbers a degree of difficulty that fit their expectations.
The convergence of these phenomena granted to Alpine tourism a central position. It intensified from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards and, in spite of fluctuations, would never lose its importance. Railway companies, travel guides, travelogues and travel agents joined forces to make the Alps a prestigious tourist destination. With Thomas Cook in particular, the Alps appeared, as early as 1861, in the catalog of tourist offers and were instrumental in the establishment of a "truly international industry" of tourism. This industry developed the infrastructure: railway lines, hotels and other services such as casinos, promenades, improvements, and funiculars.
The conquest of the Alps by British tourists was achieved along with their domestication and with the passionate participation of local, regional and national élites, be they political, economic or cultural. Leslie Stephen, in a best-selling book first published in 1871, defined the Alps as "the Playground of Europe". The book highlights the incredible success of the mountains but it also reflects the tensions that emerged among their visitors. There was a clash between the "real enthusiasts", sensitive to beauty, and the "flock of ordinary tourists" sticking to their customs and comforts.
During the twentieth century, then, the Alps were involved in the globalisation of tourism, a process that caused the multiplication of its destinations. However, in the British population these mountains retained an undeniable attraction. In fact, the British continued to view winter sports in particular (such as skiing, skating, bobsleigh, curling) as significant grounds for justifying their travel and their perpetuation of a unique culture. The personalities of Gavin de Beer and Arnold Lunn represent this attitude through a prolific interpretation of this mountain range from every possible perspective. Indeed, the British have never ceased to love and be attracted to the Alps. This is not likely to end soon, if the advertisements and presentations of the major Alpine resorts that intersperse the Sunday editions of the major newspapers are any indicator.
Linguistic history
Further information: Linguistic geography of Switzerland
The Alps are at the crossroads of the French, Italian, German and South Slavic linguistic sprachraums. They also act as a linguistic refugium, preserving archaic dialects such as Romansh, Walser German or Romance Lombardic. Extinct languages known to have been spoken in the Alpine region include Rhaetic, Lepontic, Ligurian and Langobardic.
As a result of the complicated history of the Alpine region, the native language and the national feelings of the inhabitants do not always correspond to the current international borders. The Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol region, which was annexed by Italy after World War I, has a German-speaking majority in the northern province of South Tyrol. There are Walser German speakers to found in northern Italy near the Swiss border. There are some French and Franco-Provencal-speaking districts in the Italian Aosta Valley, while there are clusters of Slovene-speakers in the Italian portion of the Julian Alps, in the Resia Valley (where the archaic Resian dialect of Slovene is still spoken) and in the mountain district known as Venetian Slovenia.
Fontego dei Tedeschi / Fondaco dei Tedeschi / Warehouse of the Germans, Calle del Fontego dei Tedeschi, San Marco, 30100 Venezia VE, IT 12/80
Venezia / Venice 360° - Terrazza Panoramica / Panoramic Rooftop Terrace Views 08/72
w. Top of Campanile della Chiesa di San Martino / Bell Tower of Church of St. Martin, Chiesa e Campanile pendente di San Giorgio dei Greci / Church and lean Tower of Church of St. George of the Greeks at Rio dei Greci, Campanile della Chiesa Parrocchiale di Sant'Elena Imperatrice / Bell Tower of Church of St. Helena Empress on Isola Sant'Elena
The Alps are the highest and most extensive mountain range that is entirely in Europe, stretching approximately 1,200 km (750 mi) across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia.
The Alpine arch extends from Nice on the western Mediterranean to Trieste on the Adriatic and Vienna at the beginning of the Pannonian Basin. The mountains were formed over tens of millions of years as the African and Eurasian tectonic plates collided. Extreme shortening caused by the event resulted in marine sedimentary rocks rising by thrusting and folding into high mountain peaks such as Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn.
Mont Blanc spans the French–Italian border, and at 4,809 m (15,778 ft) is the highest mountain in the Alps. The Alpine region area contains 128 peaks higher than 4,000 m (13,000 ft).
The altitude and size of the range affect the climate in Europe; in the mountains, precipitation levels vary greatly and climatic conditions consist of distinct zones. Wildlife such as ibex live in the higher peaks to elevations of 3,400 m (11,155 ft), and plants such as edelweiss grow in rocky areas in lower elevations as well as in higher elevations.
Evidence of human habitation in the Alps goes back to the Palaeolithic era. A mummified man ("Ötzi"), determined to be 5,000 years old, was discovered on a glacier at the Austrian–Italian border in 1991.
By the 6th century BC, the Celtic La Tène culture was well established. Hannibal notably crossed the Alps with a herd of elephants, and the Romans had settlements in the region. In 1800, Napoleon crossed one of the mountain passes with an army of 40,000. The 18th and 19th centuries saw an influx of naturalists, writers, and artists, in particular, the Romantics, followed by the golden age of alpinism as mountaineers began to ascend the peaks of the Alps.
The Alpine region has a strong cultural identity. Traditional practices such as farming, cheesemaking, and woodworking still thrive in Alpine villages. However, the tourist industry began to grow early in the 20th century and expanded significantly after World War II, eventually becoming the dominant industry by the end of the century.
The Winter Olympic Games have been hosted in the Swiss, French, Italian, Austrian and German Alps. As of 2010, the region is home to 14 million people and has 120 million annual visitors.
The valleys of the Alps have been inhabited since prehistoric times. The Alpine culture, which developed there, centers on transhumance.
Currently the Alps are divided among eight countries: France, Monaco, Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany and Slovenia. In 1991 the Alpine Convention was established to regulate this transnational area, whose area measures about 190,000 square kilometres (73,000 sq mi).
Early history (before 1200)
The Wildkirchli caves in the Appenzell Alps show traces of Neanderthal habitation (about 40,000 BCE). During the Würm glaciation (up to c. 11700 BP), the entire Alps were covered in ice. Anatomically modern humans reach the Alpine region by c. 30,000 years ago. MtDNA Haplogroup K (believed to have originated in the mid-Upper Paleolithic, between about 30,000 and 22,000 years ago, with an estimated age here of c. 12,000 years BP), is a genetic marker associated with southeastern Alpine region.
Traces of transhumance appear in the neolithic. In the Bronze Age, the Alps formed the boundary of the Urnfield and Terramare cultures. The mummy found on the Ötztal Alps, known as "Ötzi the Iceman", lived c. 3200 BC. At that stage the population in its majority had already changed from an economy based on hunting and gathering to one based on agriculture and animal husbandry. It is still an open question whether forms of pastoral mobility, such as transhumance (alpiculture), already existed in prehistory.
The earliest historical accounts date to the Roman period, mostly due to Greco-Roman ethnography, with some epigraphic evidence due to the Raetians, Lepontii and Gauls, with Ligurians and Venetii occupying the fringes in the south-west and south-east, respectively (Cisalpine Gaul) during the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. The Rock Drawings in Valcamonica date to this period. A few details have come down to modern scholars of the conquest of many of the Alpine tribes by Augustus, as well as Hannibal's battles across the Alps. Most of the local Gallic tribes allied themselves with the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War, for the duration of which Rome lost control over most of Northern Italy. The Roman conquest of Italy was only complete after the Roman victory over Carthage, by the 190s BC.
Between 35 and 6 BC, the Alpine region was gradually integrated into the expanding Roman Empire. The contemporary monument Tropaeum Alpium in La Turbie celebrates the victory won by the Romans over 46 tribes in these mountains. The subsequent construction of roads over the Alpine passes first permitted southern and northern Roman settlements in the Alps to be connected, and eventually integrated the inhabitants of the Alps into the culture of the Empire. The upper Rhône Valley or Vallis Poenina fell to the Romans after a battle at Octodurus (Martigny) in 57 BC. Aosta was founded in 25 BC as Augusta Praetoria Salassorum in the former territory of the Salassi. Raetia was conquered in 15 BC.
With the division of the Roman Empire and the collapse of its Western part in the fourth and fifth centuries, power relations in the Alpine region reverted to their local dimensions. Often dioceses became important centres. While in Italy and Southern France, dioceses in the Western Alps were established early (beginning in the fourth century) and resulted in numerous small sees, in the Eastern Alps such foundations continued into the thirteenth century and the dioceses were usually larger. New monasteries in the mountain valleys also promoted the Christianisation of the population.[3] In that period the core area of supra-regional political powers was mainly situated north of the Alps, first in the Carolingian Empire and later, after its division, in France and the Holy Roman Empire. The German emperors, who received the imperial investiture from the Pope in Rome between the ninth and the fifteenth centuries, had to cross the Alps along with their entourages.
In the 7th century, much of the Eastern Alps were settled by Slavs. Between the 7th and 9th century, the Slavic principality of Carantania existed as one of the few non-Germanic polities in the Alps. The Alpine Slavs, who inhabited the majority of present-day Austria and Slovenia, were gradually Germanized from the 9th to the 14th century. The modern Slovenes are their southernmost descendants.
The successive emigration and occupation of the Alpine region by the Alemanni from the 6th to the 8th centuries are, too, known only in outline. For "mainstream" history, the Frankish and later the Habsburg empire, the Alps had strategic importance as an obstacle, not as a landscape, and the Alpine passes have consequently had great significance militarily.
Between 889 and 973, a community of Muslim raiders operating from their base of Fraxinetum, on the coast of Provence, blocked the Alpine passes to Christian travellers until their expulsion by Christian forces led by Arduin Glaber in 973, at which point transalpine trade was able to resume.
Not until the final breakup of the Carolingian Empire in the 10th and 11th centuries is it possible to trace out the local history of different parts of the Alps, notably with the High Medieval Walser migrations.
Later Medieval to Early Modern Era (1200 to 1900)
The French historian Fernand Braudel, in his famous volume on Mediterranean civilisation, describes the Alps as "an exceptional range of mountains from the point of view of resources, collective disciplines, the quality of its human population and the number of good roads." This remarkable human presence in the Alpine region came into being with the population growth and agrarian expansion of the High Middle Ages. At first a mixed form of agriculture and animal husbandry dominated the economy. Then, from the Late Middle Ages onwards, cattle tended to replace sheep as the dominant animals. In a few regions of the northern slope of the Alps, cattle farming became increasingly oriented toward long-range markets and substituted agriculture completely. At the same time other types of interregional and transalpine exchange were growing in significance. The most important pass was the Brenner, which could accommodate cart traffic beginning in the fifteenth century. In the Western and Central Alps, the passes were practicable only by pack animals up to the period around 1800.
The process of state formation in the Alps was driven by the proximity to focal areas of European conflicts such as in the Italian wars of 1494–1559. In that period the socio-political structures of Alpine regions drifted apart. One can identify three different developmental models: one of princely centralization (Western Alps), a local-communal one (Switzerland) and an intermediate one, characterised by a powerful nobility (Eastern Alps).
Until the late nineteenth century many Alpine valleys remained mainly shaped by agrarian and pastoral activities. Population growth favoured the intensification of land use and the spread of corn, potato and cheese production. The shorter growing season at higher altitudes did not seem to be an impediment until around 1700. Later, however, it became a major obstacle to the further intensification of agriculture, especially in comparison to the surrounding lowlands where land productivity increased rapidly. Inside the Alpine region there was a striking difference between the western and central parts, which were dominated by small farming establishments, and the eastern part, which were characterised by medium or big farms. Migration to the urbanised zones of the surrounding areas was already apparent before 1500 and was often temporary. In the Alps themselves, urbanisation was slow.
Central Alps
In the Central Alps the chief event, on the northern side of the chain, is the gradual formation from 1291 to 1516 of the Swiss Confederacy, at least so far as regards the mountain cantons, and with especial reference to the independent confederations of the Grisons and the Valais, which only became full members of the Confederation in 1803 and 1815 respectively. The attraction of the south was too strong for both the Forest Cantons and the Grisons, so that both tried to secure, and actually did secure, various bits of the Milanese.
The Gotthard Pass was known in antiquity as Adula Mons, but it was not one of the important Alpine passes due to the impassability of the Schöllenen Gorge north of the pass. This changed dramatically with the construction of the so-called Devil's Bridge by the year 1230. Almost immediately, in 1231, the formerly unimportant valley of Uri was granted imperial immediacy and became the main route connecting Germany and Italy. Also in 1230, a hospice dedicated to Gotthard of Hildesheim was built on the pass to accommodate the pilgrims to Rome which now took this route. The sudden strategical importance for the European powers gained by what is now Central Switzerland was an important factor in the formation of the Old Swiss Confederacy beginning in the late 13th century.
In the 15th century, the Forest Cantons won the Valle Leventina as well as Bellinzona and the Valle di Blenio (though the Valle d'Ossola was held for a time only). Blenio was added to the Val Bregaglia (which had been given to the bishop of Coire in 960 by the emperor Otto I), along with the valleys of Valle Mesolcina and of Val Poschiavo.
Western Alps
Further information: County of Savoy and Duchy of Savoy
In the case of the Western Alps (excluding the part from the chain of Mont Blanc to the Simplon Pass, which followed the fortunes of the Valais), a prolonged struggle for control took place between the feudal lords of Savoy, the Dauphiné and Provence. In 1349 the Dauphiné fell to France, while in 1388 the county of Nice passed from Provence to the house of Savoy, which also then held Piedmont as well as other lands on the Italian side of the Alps. The struggle henceforth was limited to France and the house of Savoy, but little by little France succeeded in pushing back the house of Savoy across the Alps, forcing it to become a purely Italian power.
One turning-point in the rivalry was the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), by which France ceded to Savoy the Alpine districts of Exilles, Bardonnèche (Bardonecchia), Oulx, Fenestrelles, and Châtean Dauphin, while Savoy handed over to France the valley of Barcelonnette, situated on the western slope of the Alps and forming part of the county of Nice. The final act in this long-continued struggle took place in 1860, when France obtained by cession the rest of the county of Nice and also Savoy, thus remaining sole ruler on the western slope of the Alps.
Eastern Alps
The Eastern Alps had been included in the Frankish Empire since the 9th century. From the High Middle Ages and throughout the Early Modern era, the political history of the Eastern Alps can be considered almost totally in terms of the advance or retreat of the house of Habsburg. The Habsburgers' original home was in the lower valley of the Aar, at Habsburg castle. They lost that district to the Swiss in 1415, as they had previously lost various other sections of what is now Switzerland. But they built an impressive empire in the Eastern Alps, where they defeated numerous minor dynasties. They won the duchy of Austria with Styria in 1282, Carinthia and Carniola in 1335, Tirol in 1363, and the Vorarlberg in bits from 1375 to 1523, not to speak of minor "rectifications" of frontiers on the northern slope of the Alps. But on the other slope their progress was slower, and finally less successful. It is true that they won Primiero quite early (1373), as well as (1517) the Ampezzo Valley and several towns to the south of Trento. In 1797 they obtained Venetia proper, in 1803 the secularized bishoprics of Trento and Brixen (as well as that of Salzburg, more to the north), besides the Valtellina region, and in 1815 the Bergamasque valleys, while the Milanese had belonged to them since 1535. But in 1859 they lost to the house of Savoy both the Milanese and the Bergamasca, and in 1866 Venetia proper also, so that the Trentino was then their chief possession on the southern slope of the Alps. The gain of the Milanese in 1859 by the future king of Italy (1861) meant that Italy then won the valley of Livigno (between the Upper Engadine and Bormio), which is the only important bit it holds on the non-Italian slope of the Alps, besides the county of Tenda (obtained in 1575, and not lost in 1860), with the heads of certain glens in the Maritime Alps, reserved in 1860 for reasons connected with hunting. Following World War I and the demise of Austria-Hungary, there were important territorial changes in the Eastern Alps.
Modern history (1900 to present)
Population
For the modern era it is possible to offer a quantitative estimate of the population of the Alpine region. Within the area delimited by the Alpine Convention, there were about 3.1 million inhabitants in 1500, 5.8 in 1800, 8.5 in 1900 and 13.9 in 2000.
Sixteenth-century scholars, especially those from cities near the Alps, began to show a greater interest for the mountain phenomena. Their curiosity was also aroused by important questions of the genesis of the earth and the interpretation of the Bible. By the eighteenth century, a distinctive enthusiasm for nature and the Alps spread in European society. An example thereof is the famous multi-volume work "Voyages dans les Alpes" (1779–1796) by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure. In his work the naturalist from Geneva described, among other things, his 1787 ascent of Mont Blanc at 4800 metres above sea level. This new interest is also reflected in literature, most notably by Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s best-selling romantic novel "Julie, ou la nouvelle Heloise" (1761). These cultural developments resulted in a growth of interest in the Alps as a travel destination and laid the foundation for modern tourism. As Europe was getting increasingly more urbanised, the Alps distinguished themselves as a place of nature. During the colonial expansion many mountains in Asia, Australia and America were now named after the Alps as well.
During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries several important changes occurred. First, the Alpine population was now characterised by a particular growth rate, which was increasingly differentiated from that of the more dynamic non-mountain areas. Second, the migratory fluxes became ever more important and ever more directed toward extra-European destinations. Beginning in the early twentieth century, several regions were affected by depopulation. This process amplified the imbalanced distribution of the population within the Alps, because the urban centres at lower altitudes experienced strong growth and clearly became the most important dynamic localities during the twentieth century.
Economy
The economy showed many signs of change too. First of all, the agriculture sector started to lose importance, and sought to survive by introducing specialised crops in valley bottoms and reinforcing cattle-raising at higher altitudes. This profound transformation was obviously due to the spread of industrialisation in Europe during the nineteenth century, which had its impact on the Alps, directly or indirectly. On the one hand, activities such as iron manufacturing, which had become prominent during the early modern era, reached their limits due to transportation costs and the increasing scale of business operations. On the other hand, at the turn of the twentieth century, new opportunities emerged for the manufacturing sector, due largely to electric power, one among the main innovations of the second industrial revolution. Abundant water and steep slopes made the Alps an ideal environment for the production of hydroelectric power. Hence many industrial sites appeared there.
However, it was undoubtedly the service sector that experienced the most important new development within the Alpine economy: the rapid rise of tourism. The first phase was dominated by summertime visits and, by about 1850, the expansion of Alpine health resorts and spas. Later, tourism started to shift to the winter season, particularly after the introduction of ski-lifts in early twentieth century. For a long time, transit traffic and trade had been an essential part of the service sector in the Alps. The traditional routes and activities began to face strong competition from the construction of railway lines and tunnels such as the Semmering (1854), the Brenner (1867), the Fréjus/Mont-Cenis (1871), the Gotthard (1882), the Simplon (1906) and the Tauern (1909). In 2016 opened the 57 km long Gotthard Base Tunnel. With a maximum elevation of only 549 metres above sea level, it is the first flat direct route through the Alpine barrier.
In general, it is noteworthy that even if modern industry – tourism, the railway and later the highway system – represented opportunities for the Alps, complementing its traditional openness to new challenges, it also produced negative consequences, such as the human impact on the environment.
Political history
Like other parts of Europe, the Alpine region was affected by the formation of the nation states that produced tensions between various groups and had consequences for border areas. In these regions, the coercive power of the state was felt much more strongly that it had been before. Borders lost their permeability and now bisected areas formerly characterised by a shared sense of community and ongoing exchanges. During World War I the eastern Alpine region was one of the epicentres of the conflict.
After World War II, the Alps entered a new phase. At one and the same time, regional identities were reinforced and a common Alpine identity was constructed. A remarkable step was made in 1991 with the signing of the Alpine Convention between all Alpine countries and the European Union. This process was strengthened by the appearance of a new set of cultural values for the Alps. In the nineteenth century, there had been a tension between the romantic advocates of the "sacredness" of the Alpine peaks (such as John Ruskin), and modern mountain climbers (such as Leslie Stephen), who promoted the notion of the Alps as the "playground of Europe". In the twentieth century, the mountains acquired a clearly positive, iconic, status as places unsullied by undesirable urban influences such as pollution, noise and so on.
Tourism and alpinism
The fascination that the Alps exerted on the British has to be related to the general increase in charm and appeal of this mountain range during the eighteenth century. Yet British particularities were involved as well. Traditionally, many Englishmen felt the attraction of the Mediterranean, which was associated with the practice of the Grand Tour, and thus had to cross Europe and the Alps to reach it. From a place of transit, the Alps turned into a tourist destination as the flow of people and means of transport increased. Moreover, with the invention of new sports the Alps became an area of experimental training. The Alps offered many mountain climbers a degree of difficulty that fit their expectations.
The convergence of these phenomena granted to Alpine tourism a central position. It intensified from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards and, in spite of fluctuations, would never lose its importance. Railway companies, travel guides, travelogues and travel agents joined forces to make the Alps a prestigious tourist destination. With Thomas Cook in particular, the Alps appeared, as early as 1861, in the catalog of tourist offers and were instrumental in the establishment of a "truly international industry" of tourism. This industry developed the infrastructure: railway lines, hotels and other services such as casinos, promenades, improvements, and funiculars.
The conquest of the Alps by British tourists was achieved along with their domestication and with the passionate participation of local, regional and national élites, be they political, economic or cultural. Leslie Stephen, in a best-selling book first published in 1871, defined the Alps as "the Playground of Europe". The book highlights the incredible success of the mountains but it also reflects the tensions that emerged among their visitors. There was a clash between the "real enthusiasts", sensitive to beauty, and the "flock of ordinary tourists" sticking to their customs and comforts.
During the twentieth century, then, the Alps were involved in the globalisation of tourism, a process that caused the multiplication of its destinations. However, in the British population these mountains retained an undeniable attraction. In fact, the British continued to view winter sports in particular (such as skiing, skating, bobsleigh, curling) as significant grounds for justifying their travel and their perpetuation of a unique culture. The personalities of Gavin de Beer and Arnold Lunn represent this attitude through a prolific interpretation of this mountain range from every possible perspective. Indeed, the British have never ceased to love and be attracted to the Alps. This is not likely to end soon, if the advertisements and presentations of the major Alpine resorts that intersperse the Sunday editions of the major newspapers are any indicator.
Linguistic history
Further information: Linguistic geography of Switzerland
The Alps are at the crossroads of the French, Italian, German and South Slavic linguistic sprachraums. They also act as a linguistic refugium, preserving archaic dialects such as Romansh, Walser German or Romance Lombardic. Extinct languages known to have been spoken in the Alpine region include Rhaetic, Lepontic, Ligurian and Langobardic.
As a result of the complicated history of the Alpine region, the native language and the national feelings of the inhabitants do not always correspond to the current international borders. The Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol region, which was annexed by Italy after World War I, has a German-speaking majority in the northern province of South Tyrol. There are Walser German speakers to found in northern Italy near the Swiss border. There are some French and Franco-Provencal-speaking districts in the Italian Aosta Valley, while there are clusters of Slovene-speakers in the Italian portion of the Julian Alps, in the Resia Valley (where the archaic Resian dialect of Slovene is still spoken) and in the mountain district known as Venetian Slovenia.
The Italian Prime Minister was in the Netherlands for the Afghanistan conference in The Hague (31-03-2009) and he parked his plane at Schiphol-East
The Alps are the highest and most extensive mountain range that is entirely in Europe, stretching approximately 1,200 km (750 mi) across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia.
The Alpine arch extends from Nice on the western Mediterranean to Trieste on the Adriatic and Vienna at the beginning of the Pannonian Basin. The mountains were formed over tens of millions of years as the African and Eurasian tectonic plates collided. Extreme shortening caused by the event resulted in marine sedimentary rocks rising by thrusting and folding into high mountain peaks such as Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn.
Mont Blanc spans the French–Italian border, and at 4,809 m (15,778 ft) is the highest mountain in the Alps. The Alpine region area contains 128 peaks higher than 4,000 m (13,000 ft).
The altitude and size of the range affect the climate in Europe; in the mountains, precipitation levels vary greatly and climatic conditions consist of distinct zones. Wildlife such as ibex live in the higher peaks to elevations of 3,400 m (11,155 ft), and plants such as edelweiss grow in rocky areas in lower elevations as well as in higher elevations.
Evidence of human habitation in the Alps goes back to the Palaeolithic era. A mummified man ("Ötzi"), determined to be 5,000 years old, was discovered on a glacier at the Austrian–Italian border in 1991.
By the 6th century BC, the Celtic La Tène culture was well established. Hannibal notably crossed the Alps with a herd of elephants, and the Romans had settlements in the region. In 1800, Napoleon crossed one of the mountain passes with an army of 40,000. The 18th and 19th centuries saw an influx of naturalists, writers, and artists, in particular, the Romantics, followed by the golden age of alpinism as mountaineers began to ascend the peaks of the Alps.
The Alpine region has a strong cultural identity. Traditional practices such as farming, cheesemaking, and woodworking still thrive in Alpine villages. However, the tourist industry began to grow early in the 20th century and expanded significantly after World War II, eventually becoming the dominant industry by the end of the century.
The Winter Olympic Games have been hosted in the Swiss, French, Italian, Austrian and German Alps. As of 2010, the region is home to 14 million people and has 120 million annual visitors.
The valleys of the Alps have been inhabited since prehistoric times. The Alpine culture, which developed there, centers on transhumance.
Currently the Alps are divided among eight countries: France, Monaco, Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany and Slovenia. In 1991 the Alpine Convention was established to regulate this transnational area, whose area measures about 190,000 square kilometres (73,000 sq mi).
Early history (before 1200)
The Wildkirchli caves in the Appenzell Alps show traces of Neanderthal habitation (about 40,000 BCE). During the Würm glaciation (up to c. 11700 BP), the entire Alps were covered in ice. Anatomically modern humans reach the Alpine region by c. 30,000 years ago. MtDNA Haplogroup K (believed to have originated in the mid-Upper Paleolithic, between about 30,000 and 22,000 years ago, with an estimated age here of c. 12,000 years BP), is a genetic marker associated with southeastern Alpine region.
Traces of transhumance appear in the neolithic. In the Bronze Age, the Alps formed the boundary of the Urnfield and Terramare cultures. The mummy found on the Ötztal Alps, known as "Ötzi the Iceman", lived c. 3200 BC. At that stage the population in its majority had already changed from an economy based on hunting and gathering to one based on agriculture and animal husbandry. It is still an open question whether forms of pastoral mobility, such as transhumance (alpiculture), already existed in prehistory.
The earliest historical accounts date to the Roman period, mostly due to Greco-Roman ethnography, with some epigraphic evidence due to the Raetians, Lepontii and Gauls, with Ligurians and Venetii occupying the fringes in the south-west and south-east, respectively (Cisalpine Gaul) during the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. The Rock Drawings in Valcamonica date to this period. A few details have come down to modern scholars of the conquest of many of the Alpine tribes by Augustus, as well as Hannibal's battles across the Alps. Most of the local Gallic tribes allied themselves with the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War, for the duration of which Rome lost control over most of Northern Italy. The Roman conquest of Italy was only complete after the Roman victory over Carthage, by the 190s BC.
Between 35 and 6 BC, the Alpine region was gradually integrated into the expanding Roman Empire. The contemporary monument Tropaeum Alpium in La Turbie celebrates the victory won by the Romans over 46 tribes in these mountains. The subsequent construction of roads over the Alpine passes first permitted southern and northern Roman settlements in the Alps to be connected, and eventually integrated the inhabitants of the Alps into the culture of the Empire. The upper Rhône Valley or Vallis Poenina fell to the Romans after a battle at Octodurus (Martigny) in 57 BC. Aosta was founded in 25 BC as Augusta Praetoria Salassorum in the former territory of the Salassi. Raetia was conquered in 15 BC.
With the division of the Roman Empire and the collapse of its Western part in the fourth and fifth centuries, power relations in the Alpine region reverted to their local dimensions. Often dioceses became important centres. While in Italy and Southern France, dioceses in the Western Alps were established early (beginning in the fourth century) and resulted in numerous small sees, in the Eastern Alps such foundations continued into the thirteenth century and the dioceses were usually larger. New monasteries in the mountain valleys also promoted the Christianisation of the population.[3] In that period the core area of supra-regional political powers was mainly situated north of the Alps, first in the Carolingian Empire and later, after its division, in France and the Holy Roman Empire. The German emperors, who received the imperial investiture from the Pope in Rome between the ninth and the fifteenth centuries, had to cross the Alps along with their entourages.
In the 7th century, much of the Eastern Alps were settled by Slavs. Between the 7th and 9th century, the Slavic principality of Carantania existed as one of the few non-Germanic polities in the Alps. The Alpine Slavs, who inhabited the majority of present-day Austria and Slovenia, were gradually Germanized from the 9th to the 14th century. The modern Slovenes are their southernmost descendants.
The successive emigration and occupation of the Alpine region by the Alemanni from the 6th to the 8th centuries are, too, known only in outline. For "mainstream" history, the Frankish and later the Habsburg empire, the Alps had strategic importance as an obstacle, not as a landscape, and the Alpine passes have consequently had great significance militarily.
Between 889 and 973, a community of Muslim raiders operating from their base of Fraxinetum, on the coast of Provence, blocked the Alpine passes to Christian travellers until their expulsion by Christian forces led by Arduin Glaber in 973, at which point transalpine trade was able to resume.
Not until the final breakup of the Carolingian Empire in the 10th and 11th centuries is it possible to trace out the local history of different parts of the Alps, notably with the High Medieval Walser migrations.
Later Medieval to Early Modern Era (1200 to 1900)
The French historian Fernand Braudel, in his famous volume on Mediterranean civilisation, describes the Alps as "an exceptional range of mountains from the point of view of resources, collective disciplines, the quality of its human population and the number of good roads." This remarkable human presence in the Alpine region came into being with the population growth and agrarian expansion of the High Middle Ages. At first a mixed form of agriculture and animal husbandry dominated the economy. Then, from the Late Middle Ages onwards, cattle tended to replace sheep as the dominant animals. In a few regions of the northern slope of the Alps, cattle farming became increasingly oriented toward long-range markets and substituted agriculture completely. At the same time other types of interregional and transalpine exchange were growing in significance. The most important pass was the Brenner, which could accommodate cart traffic beginning in the fifteenth century. In the Western and Central Alps, the passes were practicable only by pack animals up to the period around 1800.
The process of state formation in the Alps was driven by the proximity to focal areas of European conflicts such as in the Italian wars of 1494–1559. In that period the socio-political structures of Alpine regions drifted apart. One can identify three different developmental models: one of princely centralization (Western Alps), a local-communal one (Switzerland) and an intermediate one, characterised by a powerful nobility (Eastern Alps).
Until the late nineteenth century many Alpine valleys remained mainly shaped by agrarian and pastoral activities. Population growth favoured the intensification of land use and the spread of corn, potato and cheese production. The shorter growing season at higher altitudes did not seem to be an impediment until around 1700. Later, however, it became a major obstacle to the further intensification of agriculture, especially in comparison to the surrounding lowlands where land productivity increased rapidly. Inside the Alpine region there was a striking difference between the western and central parts, which were dominated by small farming establishments, and the eastern part, which were characterised by medium or big farms. Migration to the urbanised zones of the surrounding areas was already apparent before 1500 and was often temporary. In the Alps themselves, urbanisation was slow.
Central Alps
In the Central Alps the chief event, on the northern side of the chain, is the gradual formation from 1291 to 1516 of the Swiss Confederacy, at least so far as regards the mountain cantons, and with especial reference to the independent confederations of the Grisons and the Valais, which only became full members of the Confederation in 1803 and 1815 respectively. The attraction of the south was too strong for both the Forest Cantons and the Grisons, so that both tried to secure, and actually did secure, various bits of the Milanese.
The Gotthard Pass was known in antiquity as Adula Mons, but it was not one of the important Alpine passes due to the impassability of the Schöllenen Gorge north of the pass. This changed dramatically with the construction of the so-called Devil's Bridge by the year 1230. Almost immediately, in 1231, the formerly unimportant valley of Uri was granted imperial immediacy and became the main route connecting Germany and Italy. Also in 1230, a hospice dedicated to Gotthard of Hildesheim was built on the pass to accommodate the pilgrims to Rome which now took this route. The sudden strategical importance for the European powers gained by what is now Central Switzerland was an important factor in the formation of the Old Swiss Confederacy beginning in the late 13th century.
In the 15th century, the Forest Cantons won the Valle Leventina as well as Bellinzona and the Valle di Blenio (though the Valle d'Ossola was held for a time only). Blenio was added to the Val Bregaglia (which had been given to the bishop of Coire in 960 by the emperor Otto I), along with the valleys of Valle Mesolcina and of Val Poschiavo.
Western Alps
Further information: County of Savoy and Duchy of Savoy
In the case of the Western Alps (excluding the part from the chain of Mont Blanc to the Simplon Pass, which followed the fortunes of the Valais), a prolonged struggle for control took place between the feudal lords of Savoy, the Dauphiné and Provence. In 1349 the Dauphiné fell to France, while in 1388 the county of Nice passed from Provence to the house of Savoy, which also then held Piedmont as well as other lands on the Italian side of the Alps. The struggle henceforth was limited to France and the house of Savoy, but little by little France succeeded in pushing back the house of Savoy across the Alps, forcing it to become a purely Italian power.
One turning-point in the rivalry was the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), by which France ceded to Savoy the Alpine districts of Exilles, Bardonnèche (Bardonecchia), Oulx, Fenestrelles, and Châtean Dauphin, while Savoy handed over to France the valley of Barcelonnette, situated on the western slope of the Alps and forming part of the county of Nice. The final act in this long-continued struggle took place in 1860, when France obtained by cession the rest of the county of Nice and also Savoy, thus remaining sole ruler on the western slope of the Alps.
Eastern Alps
The Eastern Alps had been included in the Frankish Empire since the 9th century. From the High Middle Ages and throughout the Early Modern era, the political history of the Eastern Alps can be considered almost totally in terms of the advance or retreat of the house of Habsburg. The Habsburgers' original home was in the lower valley of the Aar, at Habsburg castle. They lost that district to the Swiss in 1415, as they had previously lost various other sections of what is now Switzerland. But they built an impressive empire in the Eastern Alps, where they defeated numerous minor dynasties. They won the duchy of Austria with Styria in 1282, Carinthia and Carniola in 1335, Tirol in 1363, and the Vorarlberg in bits from 1375 to 1523, not to speak of minor "rectifications" of frontiers on the northern slope of the Alps. But on the other slope their progress was slower, and finally less successful. It is true that they won Primiero quite early (1373), as well as (1517) the Ampezzo Valley and several towns to the south of Trento. In 1797 they obtained Venetia proper, in 1803 the secularized bishoprics of Trento and Brixen (as well as that of Salzburg, more to the north), besides the Valtellina region, and in 1815 the Bergamasque valleys, while the Milanese had belonged to them since 1535. But in 1859 they lost to the house of Savoy both the Milanese and the Bergamasca, and in 1866 Venetia proper also, so that the Trentino was then their chief possession on the southern slope of the Alps. The gain of the Milanese in 1859 by the future king of Italy (1861) meant that Italy then won the valley of Livigno (between the Upper Engadine and Bormio), which is the only important bit it holds on the non-Italian slope of the Alps, besides the county of Tenda (obtained in 1575, and not lost in 1860), with the heads of certain glens in the Maritime Alps, reserved in 1860 for reasons connected with hunting. Following World War I and the demise of Austria-Hungary, there were important territorial changes in the Eastern Alps.
Modern history (1900 to present)
Population
For the modern era it is possible to offer a quantitative estimate of the population of the Alpine region. Within the area delimited by the Alpine Convention, there were about 3.1 million inhabitants in 1500, 5.8 in 1800, 8.5 in 1900 and 13.9 in 2000.
Sixteenth-century scholars, especially those from cities near the Alps, began to show a greater interest for the mountain phenomena. Their curiosity was also aroused by important questions of the genesis of the earth and the interpretation of the Bible. By the eighteenth century, a distinctive enthusiasm for nature and the Alps spread in European society. An example thereof is the famous multi-volume work "Voyages dans les Alpes" (1779–1796) by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure. In his work the naturalist from Geneva described, among other things, his 1787 ascent of Mont Blanc at 4800 metres above sea level. This new interest is also reflected in literature, most notably by Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s best-selling romantic novel "Julie, ou la nouvelle Heloise" (1761). These cultural developments resulted in a growth of interest in the Alps as a travel destination and laid the foundation for modern tourism. As Europe was getting increasingly more urbanised, the Alps distinguished themselves as a place of nature. During the colonial expansion many mountains in Asia, Australia and America were now named after the Alps as well.
During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries several important changes occurred. First, the Alpine population was now characterised by a particular growth rate, which was increasingly differentiated from that of the more dynamic non-mountain areas. Second, the migratory fluxes became ever more important and ever more directed toward extra-European destinations. Beginning in the early twentieth century, several regions were affected by depopulation. This process amplified the imbalanced distribution of the population within the Alps, because the urban centres at lower altitudes experienced strong growth and clearly became the most important dynamic localities during the twentieth century.
Economy
The economy showed many signs of change too. First of all, the agriculture sector started to lose importance, and sought to survive by introducing specialised crops in valley bottoms and reinforcing cattle-raising at higher altitudes. This profound transformation was obviously due to the spread of industrialisation in Europe during the nineteenth century, which had its impact on the Alps, directly or indirectly. On the one hand, activities such as iron manufacturing, which had become prominent during the early modern era, reached their limits due to transportation costs and the increasing scale of business operations. On the other hand, at the turn of the twentieth century, new opportunities emerged for the manufacturing sector, due largely to electric power, one among the main innovations of the second industrial revolution. Abundant water and steep slopes made the Alps an ideal environment for the production of hydroelectric power. Hence many industrial sites appeared there.
However, it was undoubtedly the service sector that experienced the most important new development within the Alpine economy: the rapid rise of tourism. The first phase was dominated by summertime visits and, by about 1850, the expansion of Alpine health resorts and spas. Later, tourism started to shift to the winter season, particularly after the introduction of ski-lifts in early twentieth century. For a long time, transit traffic and trade had been an essential part of the service sector in the Alps. The traditional routes and activities began to face strong competition from the construction of railway lines and tunnels such as the Semmering (1854), the Brenner (1867), the Fréjus/Mont-Cenis (1871), the Gotthard (1882), the Simplon (1906) and the Tauern (1909). In 2016 opened the 57 km long Gotthard Base Tunnel. With a maximum elevation of only 549 metres above sea level, it is the first flat direct route through the Alpine barrier.
In general, it is noteworthy that even if modern industry – tourism, the railway and later the highway system – represented opportunities for the Alps, complementing its traditional openness to new challenges, it also produced negative consequences, such as the human impact on the environment.
Political history
Like other parts of Europe, the Alpine region was affected by the formation of the nation states that produced tensions between various groups and had consequences for border areas. In these regions, the coercive power of the state was felt much more strongly that it had been before. Borders lost their permeability and now bisected areas formerly characterised by a shared sense of community and ongoing exchanges. During World War I the eastern Alpine region was one of the epicentres of the conflict.
After World War II, the Alps entered a new phase. At one and the same time, regional identities were reinforced and a common Alpine identity was constructed. A remarkable step was made in 1991 with the signing of the Alpine Convention between all Alpine countries and the European Union. This process was strengthened by the appearance of a new set of cultural values for the Alps. In the nineteenth century, there had been a tension between the romantic advocates of the "sacredness" of the Alpine peaks (such as John Ruskin), and modern mountain climbers (such as Leslie Stephen), who promoted the notion of the Alps as the "playground of Europe". In the twentieth century, the mountains acquired a clearly positive, iconic, status as places unsullied by undesirable urban influences such as pollution, noise and so on.
Tourism and alpinism
The fascination that the Alps exerted on the British has to be related to the general increase in charm and appeal of this mountain range during the eighteenth century. Yet British particularities were involved as well. Traditionally, many Englishmen felt the attraction of the Mediterranean, which was associated with the practice of the Grand Tour, and thus had to cross Europe and the Alps to reach it. From a place of transit, the Alps turned into a tourist destination as the flow of people and means of transport increased. Moreover, with the invention of new sports the Alps became an area of experimental training. The Alps offered many mountain climbers a degree of difficulty that fit their expectations.
The convergence of these phenomena granted to Alpine tourism a central position. It intensified from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards and, in spite of fluctuations, would never lose its importance. Railway companies, travel guides, travelogues and travel agents joined forces to make the Alps a prestigious tourist destination. With Thomas Cook in particular, the Alps appeared, as early as 1861, in the catalog of tourist offers and were instrumental in the establishment of a "truly international industry" of tourism. This industry developed the infrastructure: railway lines, hotels and other services such as casinos, promenades, improvements, and funiculars.
The conquest of the Alps by British tourists was achieved along with their domestication and with the passionate participation of local, regional and national élites, be they political, economic or cultural. Leslie Stephen, in a best-selling book first published in 1871, defined the Alps as "the Playground of Europe". The book highlights the incredible success of the mountains but it also reflects the tensions that emerged among their visitors. There was a clash between the "real enthusiasts", sensitive to beauty, and the "flock of ordinary tourists" sticking to their customs and comforts.
During the twentieth century, then, the Alps were involved in the globalisation of tourism, a process that caused the multiplication of its destinations. However, in the British population these mountains retained an undeniable attraction. In fact, the British continued to view winter sports in particular (such as skiing, skating, bobsleigh, curling) as significant grounds for justifying their travel and their perpetuation of a unique culture. The personalities of Gavin de Beer and Arnold Lunn represent this attitude through a prolific interpretation of this mountain range from every possible perspective. Indeed, the British have never ceased to love and be attracted to the Alps. This is not likely to end soon, if the advertisements and presentations of the major Alpine resorts that intersperse the Sunday editions of the major newspapers are any indicator.
Linguistic history
Further information: Linguistic geography of Switzerland
The Alps are at the crossroads of the French, Italian, German and South Slavic linguistic sprachraums. They also act as a linguistic refugium, preserving archaic dialects such as Romansh, Walser German or Romance Lombardic. Extinct languages known to have been spoken in the Alpine region include Rhaetic, Lepontic, Ligurian and Langobardic.
As a result of the complicated history of the Alpine region, the native language and the national feelings of the inhabitants do not always correspond to the current international borders. The Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol region, which was annexed by Italy after World War I, has a German-speaking majority in the northern province of South Tyrol. There are Walser German speakers to found in northern Italy near the Swiss border. There are some French and Franco-Provencal-speaking districts in the Italian Aosta Valley, while there are clusters of Slovene-speakers in the Italian portion of the Julian Alps, in the Resia Valley (where the archaic Resian dialect of Slovene is still spoken) and in the mountain district known as Venetian Slovenia.
Torcello - Back to Canale Maggiore / Ponte del Diavolo through the Torcello Meadows 15/18
w. Basilica Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta / Basilica Church of the Assumption of St. Mary aka Torcello Cathedral
The Alps are the highest and most extensive mountain range that is entirely in Europe, stretching approximately 1,200 km (750 mi) across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia.
The Alpine arch extends from Nice on the western Mediterranean to Trieste on the Adriatic and Vienna at the beginning of the Pannonian Basin. The mountains were formed over tens of millions of years as the African and Eurasian tectonic plates collided. Extreme shortening caused by the event resulted in marine sedimentary rocks rising by thrusting and folding into high mountain peaks such as Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn.
Mont Blanc spans the French–Italian border, and at 4,809 m (15,778 ft) is the highest mountain in the Alps. The Alpine region area contains 128 peaks higher than 4,000 m (13,000 ft).
The altitude and size of the range affect the climate in Europe; in the mountains, precipitation levels vary greatly and climatic conditions consist of distinct zones. Wildlife such as ibex live in the higher peaks to elevations of 3,400 m (11,155 ft), and plants such as edelweiss grow in rocky areas in lower elevations as well as in higher elevations.
Evidence of human habitation in the Alps goes back to the Palaeolithic era. A mummified man ("Ötzi"), determined to be 5,000 years old, was discovered on a glacier at the Austrian–Italian border in 1991.
By the 6th century BC, the Celtic La Tène culture was well established. Hannibal notably crossed the Alps with a herd of elephants, and the Romans had settlements in the region. In 1800, Napoleon crossed one of the mountain passes with an army of 40,000. The 18th and 19th centuries saw an influx of naturalists, writers, and artists, in particular, the Romantics, followed by the golden age of alpinism as mountaineers began to ascend the peaks of the Alps.
The Alpine region has a strong cultural identity. Traditional practices such as farming, cheesemaking, and woodworking still thrive in Alpine villages. However, the tourist industry began to grow early in the 20th century and expanded significantly after World War II, eventually becoming the dominant industry by the end of the century.
The Winter Olympic Games have been hosted in the Swiss, French, Italian, Austrian and German Alps. As of 2010, the region is home to 14 million people and has 120 million annual visitors.
The valleys of the Alps have been inhabited since prehistoric times. The Alpine culture, which developed there, centers on transhumance.
Currently the Alps are divided among eight countries: France, Monaco, Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany and Slovenia. In 1991 the Alpine Convention was established to regulate this transnational area, whose area measures about 190,000 square kilometres (73,000 sq mi).
Early history (before 1200)
The Wildkirchli caves in the Appenzell Alps show traces of Neanderthal habitation (about 40,000 BCE). During the Würm glaciation (up to c. 11700 BP), the entire Alps were covered in ice. Anatomically modern humans reach the Alpine region by c. 30,000 years ago. MtDNA Haplogroup K (believed to have originated in the mid-Upper Paleolithic, between about 30,000 and 22,000 years ago, with an estimated age here of c. 12,000 years BP), is a genetic marker associated with southeastern Alpine region.
Traces of transhumance appear in the neolithic. In the Bronze Age, the Alps formed the boundary of the Urnfield and Terramare cultures. The mummy found on the Ötztal Alps, known as "Ötzi the Iceman", lived c. 3200 BC. At that stage the population in its majority had already changed from an economy based on hunting and gathering to one based on agriculture and animal husbandry. It is still an open question whether forms of pastoral mobility, such as transhumance (alpiculture), already existed in prehistory.
The earliest historical accounts date to the Roman period, mostly due to Greco-Roman ethnography, with some epigraphic evidence due to the Raetians, Lepontii and Gauls, with Ligurians and Venetii occupying the fringes in the south-west and south-east, respectively (Cisalpine Gaul) during the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. The Rock Drawings in Valcamonica date to this period. A few details have come down to modern scholars of the conquest of many of the Alpine tribes by Augustus, as well as Hannibal's battles across the Alps. Most of the local Gallic tribes allied themselves with the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War, for the duration of which Rome lost control over most of Northern Italy. The Roman conquest of Italy was only complete after the Roman victory over Carthage, by the 190s BC.
Between 35 and 6 BC, the Alpine region was gradually integrated into the expanding Roman Empire. The contemporary monument Tropaeum Alpium in La Turbie celebrates the victory won by the Romans over 46 tribes in these mountains. The subsequent construction of roads over the Alpine passes first permitted southern and northern Roman settlements in the Alps to be connected, and eventually integrated the inhabitants of the Alps into the culture of the Empire. The upper Rhône Valley or Vallis Poenina fell to the Romans after a battle at Octodurus (Martigny) in 57 BC. Aosta was founded in 25 BC as Augusta Praetoria Salassorum in the former territory of the Salassi. Raetia was conquered in 15 BC.
With the division of the Roman Empire and the collapse of its Western part in the fourth and fifth centuries, power relations in the Alpine region reverted to their local dimensions. Often dioceses became important centres. While in Italy and Southern France, dioceses in the Western Alps were established early (beginning in the fourth century) and resulted in numerous small sees, in the Eastern Alps such foundations continued into the thirteenth century and the dioceses were usually larger. New monasteries in the mountain valleys also promoted the Christianisation of the population.[3] In that period the core area of supra-regional political powers was mainly situated north of the Alps, first in the Carolingian Empire and later, after its division, in France and the Holy Roman Empire. The German emperors, who received the imperial investiture from the Pope in Rome between the ninth and the fifteenth centuries, had to cross the Alps along with their entourages.
In the 7th century, much of the Eastern Alps were settled by Slavs. Between the 7th and 9th century, the Slavic principality of Carantania existed as one of the few non-Germanic polities in the Alps. The Alpine Slavs, who inhabited the majority of present-day Austria and Slovenia, were gradually Germanized from the 9th to the 14th century. The modern Slovenes are their southernmost descendants.
The successive emigration and occupation of the Alpine region by the Alemanni from the 6th to the 8th centuries are, too, known only in outline. For "mainstream" history, the Frankish and later the Habsburg empire, the Alps had strategic importance as an obstacle, not as a landscape, and the Alpine passes have consequently had great significance militarily.
Between 889 and 973, a community of Muslim raiders operating from their base of Fraxinetum, on the coast of Provence, blocked the Alpine passes to Christian travellers until their expulsion by Christian forces led by Arduin Glaber in 973, at which point transalpine trade was able to resume.
Not until the final breakup of the Carolingian Empire in the 10th and 11th centuries is it possible to trace out the local history of different parts of the Alps, notably with the High Medieval Walser migrations.
Later Medieval to Early Modern Era (1200 to 1900)
The French historian Fernand Braudel, in his famous volume on Mediterranean civilisation, describes the Alps as "an exceptional range of mountains from the point of view of resources, collective disciplines, the quality of its human population and the number of good roads." This remarkable human presence in the Alpine region came into being with the population growth and agrarian expansion of the High Middle Ages. At first a mixed form of agriculture and animal husbandry dominated the economy. Then, from the Late Middle Ages onwards, cattle tended to replace sheep as the dominant animals. In a few regions of the northern slope of the Alps, cattle farming became increasingly oriented toward long-range markets and substituted agriculture completely. At the same time other types of interregional and transalpine exchange were growing in significance. The most important pass was the Brenner, which could accommodate cart traffic beginning in the fifteenth century. In the Western and Central Alps, the passes were practicable only by pack animals up to the period around 1800.
The process of state formation in the Alps was driven by the proximity to focal areas of European conflicts such as in the Italian wars of 1494–1559. In that period the socio-political structures of Alpine regions drifted apart. One can identify three different developmental models: one of princely centralization (Western Alps), a local-communal one (Switzerland) and an intermediate one, characterised by a powerful nobility (Eastern Alps).
Until the late nineteenth century many Alpine valleys remained mainly shaped by agrarian and pastoral activities. Population growth favoured the intensification of land use and the spread of corn, potato and cheese production. The shorter growing season at higher altitudes did not seem to be an impediment until around 1700. Later, however, it became a major obstacle to the further intensification of agriculture, especially in comparison to the surrounding lowlands where land productivity increased rapidly. Inside the Alpine region there was a striking difference between the western and central parts, which were dominated by small farming establishments, and the eastern part, which were characterised by medium or big farms. Migration to the urbanised zones of the surrounding areas was already apparent before 1500 and was often temporary. In the Alps themselves, urbanisation was slow.
Central Alps
In the Central Alps the chief event, on the northern side of the chain, is the gradual formation from 1291 to 1516 of the Swiss Confederacy, at least so far as regards the mountain cantons, and with especial reference to the independent confederations of the Grisons and the Valais, which only became full members of the Confederation in 1803 and 1815 respectively. The attraction of the south was too strong for both the Forest Cantons and the Grisons, so that both tried to secure, and actually did secure, various bits of the Milanese.
The Gotthard Pass was known in antiquity as Adula Mons, but it was not one of the important Alpine passes due to the impassability of the Schöllenen Gorge north of the pass. This changed dramatically with the construction of the so-called Devil's Bridge by the year 1230. Almost immediately, in 1231, the formerly unimportant valley of Uri was granted imperial immediacy and became the main route connecting Germany and Italy. Also in 1230, a hospice dedicated to Gotthard of Hildesheim was built on the pass to accommodate the pilgrims to Rome which now took this route. The sudden strategical importance for the European powers gained by what is now Central Switzerland was an important factor in the formation of the Old Swiss Confederacy beginning in the late 13th century.
In the 15th century, the Forest Cantons won the Valle Leventina as well as Bellinzona and the Valle di Blenio (though the Valle d'Ossola was held for a time only). Blenio was added to the Val Bregaglia (which had been given to the bishop of Coire in 960 by the emperor Otto I), along with the valleys of Valle Mesolcina and of Val Poschiavo.
Western Alps
Further information: County of Savoy and Duchy of Savoy
In the case of the Western Alps (excluding the part from the chain of Mont Blanc to the Simplon Pass, which followed the fortunes of the Valais), a prolonged struggle for control took place between the feudal lords of Savoy, the Dauphiné and Provence. In 1349 the Dauphiné fell to France, while in 1388 the county of Nice passed from Provence to the house of Savoy, which also then held Piedmont as well as other lands on the Italian side of the Alps. The struggle henceforth was limited to France and the house of Savoy, but little by little France succeeded in pushing back the house of Savoy across the Alps, forcing it to become a purely Italian power.
One turning-point in the rivalry was the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), by which France ceded to Savoy the Alpine districts of Exilles, Bardonnèche (Bardonecchia), Oulx, Fenestrelles, and Châtean Dauphin, while Savoy handed over to France the valley of Barcelonnette, situated on the western slope of the Alps and forming part of the county of Nice. The final act in this long-continued struggle took place in 1860, when France obtained by cession the rest of the county of Nice and also Savoy, thus remaining sole ruler on the western slope of the Alps.
Eastern Alps
The Eastern Alps had been included in the Frankish Empire since the 9th century. From the High Middle Ages and throughout the Early Modern era, the political history of the Eastern Alps can be considered almost totally in terms of the advance or retreat of the house of Habsburg. The Habsburgers' original home was in the lower valley of the Aar, at Habsburg castle. They lost that district to the Swiss in 1415, as they had previously lost various other sections of what is now Switzerland. But they built an impressive empire in the Eastern Alps, where they defeated numerous minor dynasties. They won the duchy of Austria with Styria in 1282, Carinthia and Carniola in 1335, Tirol in 1363, and the Vorarlberg in bits from 1375 to 1523, not to speak of minor "rectifications" of frontiers on the northern slope of the Alps. But on the other slope their progress was slower, and finally less successful. It is true that they won Primiero quite early (1373), as well as (1517) the Ampezzo Valley and several towns to the south of Trento. In 1797 they obtained Venetia proper, in 1803 the secularized bishoprics of Trento and Brixen (as well as that of Salzburg, more to the north), besides the Valtellina region, and in 1815 the Bergamasque valleys, while the Milanese had belonged to them since 1535. But in 1859 they lost to the house of Savoy both the Milanese and the Bergamasca, and in 1866 Venetia proper also, so that the Trentino was then their chief possession on the southern slope of the Alps. The gain of the Milanese in 1859 by the future king of Italy (1861) meant that Italy then won the valley of Livigno (between the Upper Engadine and Bormio), which is the only important bit it holds on the non-Italian slope of the Alps, besides the county of Tenda (obtained in 1575, and not lost in 1860), with the heads of certain glens in the Maritime Alps, reserved in 1860 for reasons connected with hunting. Following World War I and the demise of Austria-Hungary, there were important territorial changes in the Eastern Alps.
Modern history (1900 to present)
Population
For the modern era it is possible to offer a quantitative estimate of the population of the Alpine region. Within the area delimited by the Alpine Convention, there were about 3.1 million inhabitants in 1500, 5.8 in 1800, 8.5 in 1900 and 13.9 in 2000.
Sixteenth-century scholars, especially those from cities near the Alps, began to show a greater interest for the mountain phenomena. Their curiosity was also aroused by important questions of the genesis of the earth and the interpretation of the Bible. By the eighteenth century, a distinctive enthusiasm for nature and the Alps spread in European society. An example thereof is the famous multi-volume work "Voyages dans les Alpes" (1779–1796) by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure. In his work the naturalist from Geneva described, among other things, his 1787 ascent of Mont Blanc at 4800 metres above sea level. This new interest is also reflected in literature, most notably by Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s best-selling romantic novel "Julie, ou la nouvelle Heloise" (1761). These cultural developments resulted in a growth of interest in the Alps as a travel destination and laid the foundation for modern tourism. As Europe was getting increasingly more urbanised, the Alps distinguished themselves as a place of nature. During the colonial expansion many mountains in Asia, Australia and America were now named after the Alps as well.
During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries several important changes occurred. First, the Alpine population was now characterised by a particular growth rate, which was increasingly differentiated from that of the more dynamic non-mountain areas. Second, the migratory fluxes became ever more important and ever more directed toward extra-European destinations. Beginning in the early twentieth century, several regions were affected by depopulation. This process amplified the imbalanced distribution of the population within the Alps, because the urban centres at lower altitudes experienced strong growth and clearly became the most important dynamic localities during the twentieth century.
Economy
The economy showed many signs of change too. First of all, the agriculture sector started to lose importance, and sought to survive by introducing specialised crops in valley bottoms and reinforcing cattle-raising at higher altitudes. This profound transformation was obviously due to the spread of industrialisation in Europe during the nineteenth century, which had its impact on the Alps, directly or indirectly. On the one hand, activities such as iron manufacturing, which had become prominent during the early modern era, reached their limits due to transportation costs and the increasing scale of business operations. On the other hand, at the turn of the twentieth century, new opportunities emerged for the manufacturing sector, due largely to electric power, one among the main innovations of the second industrial revolution. Abundant water and steep slopes made the Alps an ideal environment for the production of hydroelectric power. Hence many industrial sites appeared there.
However, it was undoubtedly the service sector that experienced the most important new development within the Alpine economy: the rapid rise of tourism. The first phase was dominated by summertime visits and, by about 1850, the expansion of Alpine health resorts and spas. Later, tourism started to shift to the winter season, particularly after the introduction of ski-lifts in early twentieth century. For a long time, transit traffic and trade had been an essential part of the service sector in the Alps. The traditional routes and activities began to face strong competition from the construction of railway lines and tunnels such as the Semmering (1854), the Brenner (1867), the Fréjus/Mont-Cenis (1871), the Gotthard (1882), the Simplon (1906) and the Tauern (1909). In 2016 opened the 57 km long Gotthard Base Tunnel. With a maximum elevation of only 549 metres above sea level, it is the first flat direct route through the Alpine barrier.
In general, it is noteworthy that even if modern industry – tourism, the railway and later the highway system – represented opportunities for the Alps, complementing its traditional openness to new challenges, it also produced negative consequences, such as the human impact on the environment.
Political history
Like other parts of Europe, the Alpine region was affected by the formation of the nation states that produced tensions between various groups and had consequences for border areas. In these regions, the coercive power of the state was felt much more strongly that it had been before. Borders lost their permeability and now bisected areas formerly characterised by a shared sense of community and ongoing exchanges. During World War I the eastern Alpine region was one of the epicentres of the conflict.
After World War II, the Alps entered a new phase. At one and the same time, regional identities were reinforced and a common Alpine identity was constructed. A remarkable step was made in 1991 with the signing of the Alpine Convention between all Alpine countries and the European Union. This process was strengthened by the appearance of a new set of cultural values for the Alps. In the nineteenth century, there had been a tension between the romantic advocates of the "sacredness" of the Alpine peaks (such as John Ruskin), and modern mountain climbers (such as Leslie Stephen), who promoted the notion of the Alps as the "playground of Europe". In the twentieth century, the mountains acquired a clearly positive, iconic, status as places unsullied by undesirable urban influences such as pollution, noise and so on.
Tourism and alpinism
The fascination that the Alps exerted on the British has to be related to the general increase in charm and appeal of this mountain range during the eighteenth century. Yet British particularities were involved as well. Traditionally, many Englishmen felt the attraction of the Mediterranean, which was associated with the practice of the Grand Tour, and thus had to cross Europe and the Alps to reach it. From a place of transit, the Alps turned into a tourist destination as the flow of people and means of transport increased. Moreover, with the invention of new sports the Alps became an area of experimental training. The Alps offered many mountain climbers a degree of difficulty that fit their expectations.
The convergence of these phenomena granted to Alpine tourism a central position. It intensified from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards and, in spite of fluctuations, would never lose its importance. Railway companies, travel guides, travelogues and travel agents joined forces to make the Alps a prestigious tourist destination. With Thomas Cook in particular, the Alps appeared, as early as 1861, in the catalog of tourist offers and were instrumental in the establishment of a "truly international industry" of tourism. This industry developed the infrastructure: railway lines, hotels and other services such as casinos, promenades, improvements, and funiculars.
The conquest of the Alps by British tourists was achieved along with their domestication and with the passionate participation of local, regional and national élites, be they political, economic or cultural. Leslie Stephen, in a best-selling book first published in 1871, defined the Alps as "the Playground of Europe". The book highlights the incredible success of the mountains but it also reflects the tensions that emerged among their visitors. There was a clash between the "real enthusiasts", sensitive to beauty, and the "flock of ordinary tourists" sticking to their customs and comforts.
During the twentieth century, then, the Alps were involved in the globalisation of tourism, a process that caused the multiplication of its destinations. However, in the British population these mountains retained an undeniable attraction. In fact, the British continued to view winter sports in particular (such as skiing, skating, bobsleigh, curling) as significant grounds for justifying their travel and their perpetuation of a unique culture. The personalities of Gavin de Beer and Arnold Lunn represent this attitude through a prolific interpretation of this mountain range from every possible perspective. Indeed, the British have never ceased to love and be attracted to the Alps. This is not likely to end soon, if the advertisements and presentations of the major Alpine resorts that intersperse the Sunday editions of the major newspapers are any indicator.
Linguistic history
Further information: Linguistic geography of Switzerland
The Alps are at the crossroads of the French, Italian, German and South Slavic linguistic sprachraums. They also act as a linguistic refugium, preserving archaic dialects such as Romansh, Walser German or Romance Lombardic. Extinct languages known to have been spoken in the Alpine region include Rhaetic, Lepontic, Ligurian and Langobardic.
As a result of the complicated history of the Alpine region, the native language and the national feelings of the inhabitants do not always correspond to the current international borders. The Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol region, which was annexed by Italy after World War I, has a German-speaking majority in the northern province of South Tyrol. There are Walser German speakers to found in northern Italy near the Swiss border. There are some French and Franco-Provencal-speaking districts in the Italian Aosta Valley, while there are clusters of Slovene-speakers in the Italian portion of the Julian Alps, in the Resia Valley (where the archaic Resian dialect of Slovene is still spoken) and in the mountain district known as Venetian Slovenia.
The Alps are the highest and most extensive mountain range that is entirely in Europe, stretching approximately 1,200 km (750 mi) across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia.
The Alpine arch extends from Nice on the western Mediterranean to Trieste on the Adriatic and Vienna at the beginning of the Pannonian Basin. The mountains were formed over tens of millions of years as the African and Eurasian tectonic plates collided. Extreme shortening caused by the event resulted in marine sedimentary rocks rising by thrusting and folding into high mountain peaks such as Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn.
Mont Blanc spans the French–Italian border, and at 4,809 m (15,778 ft) is the highest mountain in the Alps. The Alpine region area contains 128 peaks higher than 4,000 m (13,000 ft).
The altitude and size of the range affect the climate in Europe; in the mountains, precipitation levels vary greatly and climatic conditions consist of distinct zones. Wildlife such as ibex live in the higher peaks to elevations of 3,400 m (11,155 ft), and plants such as edelweiss grow in rocky areas in lower elevations as well as in higher elevations.
Evidence of human habitation in the Alps goes back to the Palaeolithic era. A mummified man ("Ötzi"), determined to be 5,000 years old, was discovered on a glacier at the Austrian–Italian border in 1991.
By the 6th century BC, the Celtic La Tène culture was well established. Hannibal notably crossed the Alps with a herd of elephants, and the Romans had settlements in the region. In 1800, Napoleon crossed one of the mountain passes with an army of 40,000. The 18th and 19th centuries saw an influx of naturalists, writers, and artists, in particular, the Romantics, followed by the golden age of alpinism as mountaineers began to ascend the peaks of the Alps.
The Alpine region has a strong cultural identity. Traditional practices such as farming, cheesemaking, and woodworking still thrive in Alpine villages. However, the tourist industry began to grow early in the 20th century and expanded significantly after World War II, eventually becoming the dominant industry by the end of the century.
The Winter Olympic Games have been hosted in the Swiss, French, Italian, Austrian and German Alps. As of 2010, the region is home to 14 million people and has 120 million annual visitors.
The valleys of the Alps have been inhabited since prehistoric times. The Alpine culture, which developed there, centers on transhumance.
Currently the Alps are divided among eight countries: France, Monaco, Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany and Slovenia. In 1991 the Alpine Convention was established to regulate this transnational area, whose area measures about 190,000 square kilometres (73,000 sq mi).
Early history (before 1200)
The Wildkirchli caves in the Appenzell Alps show traces of Neanderthal habitation (about 40,000 BCE). During the Würm glaciation (up to c. 11700 BP), the entire Alps were covered in ice. Anatomically modern humans reach the Alpine region by c. 30,000 years ago. MtDNA Haplogroup K (believed to have originated in the mid-Upper Paleolithic, between about 30,000 and 22,000 years ago, with an estimated age here of c. 12,000 years BP), is a genetic marker associated with southeastern Alpine region.
Traces of transhumance appear in the neolithic. In the Bronze Age, the Alps formed the boundary of the Urnfield and Terramare cultures. The mummy found on the Ötztal Alps, known as "Ötzi the Iceman", lived c. 3200 BC. At that stage the population in its majority had already changed from an economy based on hunting and gathering to one based on agriculture and animal husbandry. It is still an open question whether forms of pastoral mobility, such as transhumance (alpiculture), already existed in prehistory.
The earliest historical accounts date to the Roman period, mostly due to Greco-Roman ethnography, with some epigraphic evidence due to the Raetians, Lepontii and Gauls, with Ligurians and Venetii occupying the fringes in the south-west and south-east, respectively (Cisalpine Gaul) during the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. The Rock Drawings in Valcamonica date to this period. A few details have come down to modern scholars of the conquest of many of the Alpine tribes by Augustus, as well as Hannibal's battles across the Alps. Most of the local Gallic tribes allied themselves with the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War, for the duration of which Rome lost control over most of Northern Italy. The Roman conquest of Italy was only complete after the Roman victory over Carthage, by the 190s BC.
Between 35 and 6 BC, the Alpine region was gradually integrated into the expanding Roman Empire. The contemporary monument Tropaeum Alpium in La Turbie celebrates the victory won by the Romans over 46 tribes in these mountains. The subsequent construction of roads over the Alpine passes first permitted southern and northern Roman settlements in the Alps to be connected, and eventually integrated the inhabitants of the Alps into the culture of the Empire. The upper Rhône Valley or Vallis Poenina fell to the Romans after a battle at Octodurus (Martigny) in 57 BC. Aosta was founded in 25 BC as Augusta Praetoria Salassorum in the former territory of the Salassi. Raetia was conquered in 15 BC.
With the division of the Roman Empire and the collapse of its Western part in the fourth and fifth centuries, power relations in the Alpine region reverted to their local dimensions. Often dioceses became important centres. While in Italy and Southern France, dioceses in the Western Alps were established early (beginning in the fourth century) and resulted in numerous small sees, in the Eastern Alps such foundations continued into the thirteenth century and the dioceses were usually larger. New monasteries in the mountain valleys also promoted the Christianisation of the population.[3] In that period the core area of supra-regional political powers was mainly situated north of the Alps, first in the Carolingian Empire and later, after its division, in France and the Holy Roman Empire. The German emperors, who received the imperial investiture from the Pope in Rome between the ninth and the fifteenth centuries, had to cross the Alps along with their entourages.
In the 7th century, much of the Eastern Alps were settled by Slavs. Between the 7th and 9th century, the Slavic principality of Carantania existed as one of the few non-Germanic polities in the Alps. The Alpine Slavs, who inhabited the majority of present-day Austria and Slovenia, were gradually Germanized from the 9th to the 14th century. The modern Slovenes are their southernmost descendants.
The successive emigration and occupation of the Alpine region by the Alemanni from the 6th to the 8th centuries are, too, known only in outline. For "mainstream" history, the Frankish and later the Habsburg empire, the Alps had strategic importance as an obstacle, not as a landscape, and the Alpine passes have consequently had great significance militarily.
Between 889 and 973, a community of Muslim raiders operating from their base of Fraxinetum, on the coast of Provence, blocked the Alpine passes to Christian travellers until their expulsion by Christian forces led by Arduin Glaber in 973, at which point transalpine trade was able to resume.
Not until the final breakup of the Carolingian Empire in the 10th and 11th centuries is it possible to trace out the local history of different parts of the Alps, notably with the High Medieval Walser migrations.
Later Medieval to Early Modern Era (1200 to 1900)
The French historian Fernand Braudel, in his famous volume on Mediterranean civilisation, describes the Alps as "an exceptional range of mountains from the point of view of resources, collective disciplines, the quality of its human population and the number of good roads." This remarkable human presence in the Alpine region came into being with the population growth and agrarian expansion of the High Middle Ages. At first a mixed form of agriculture and animal husbandry dominated the economy. Then, from the Late Middle Ages onwards, cattle tended to replace sheep as the dominant animals. In a few regions of the northern slope of the Alps, cattle farming became increasingly oriented toward long-range markets and substituted agriculture completely. At the same time other types of interregional and transalpine exchange were growing in significance. The most important pass was the Brenner, which could accommodate cart traffic beginning in the fifteenth century. In the Western and Central Alps, the passes were practicable only by pack animals up to the period around 1800.
The process of state formation in the Alps was driven by the proximity to focal areas of European conflicts such as in the Italian wars of 1494–1559. In that period the socio-political structures of Alpine regions drifted apart. One can identify three different developmental models: one of princely centralization (Western Alps), a local-communal one (Switzerland) and an intermediate one, characterised by a powerful nobility (Eastern Alps).
Until the late nineteenth century many Alpine valleys remained mainly shaped by agrarian and pastoral activities. Population growth favoured the intensification of land use and the spread of corn, potato and cheese production. The shorter growing season at higher altitudes did not seem to be an impediment until around 1700. Later, however, it became a major obstacle to the further intensification of agriculture, especially in comparison to the surrounding lowlands where land productivity increased rapidly. Inside the Alpine region there was a striking difference between the western and central parts, which were dominated by small farming establishments, and the eastern part, which were characterised by medium or big farms. Migration to the urbanised zones of the surrounding areas was already apparent before 1500 and was often temporary. In the Alps themselves, urbanisation was slow.
Central Alps
In the Central Alps the chief event, on the northern side of the chain, is the gradual formation from 1291 to 1516 of the Swiss Confederacy, at least so far as regards the mountain cantons, and with especial reference to the independent confederations of the Grisons and the Valais, which only became full members of the Confederation in 1803 and 1815 respectively. The attraction of the south was too strong for both the Forest Cantons and the Grisons, so that both tried to secure, and actually did secure, various bits of the Milanese.
The Gotthard Pass was known in antiquity as Adula Mons, but it was not one of the important Alpine passes due to the impassability of the Schöllenen Gorge north of the pass. This changed dramatically with the construction of the so-called Devil's Bridge by the year 1230. Almost immediately, in 1231, the formerly unimportant valley of Uri was granted imperial immediacy and became the main route connecting Germany and Italy. Also in 1230, a hospice dedicated to Gotthard of Hildesheim was built on the pass to accommodate the pilgrims to Rome which now took this route. The sudden strategical importance for the European powers gained by what is now Central Switzerland was an important factor in the formation of the Old Swiss Confederacy beginning in the late 13th century.
In the 15th century, the Forest Cantons won the Valle Leventina as well as Bellinzona and the Valle di Blenio (though the Valle d'Ossola was held for a time only). Blenio was added to the Val Bregaglia (which had been given to the bishop of Coire in 960 by the emperor Otto I), along with the valleys of Valle Mesolcina and of Val Poschiavo.
Western Alps
Further information: County of Savoy and Duchy of Savoy
In the case of the Western Alps (excluding the part from the chain of Mont Blanc to the Simplon Pass, which followed the fortunes of the Valais), a prolonged struggle for control took place between the feudal lords of Savoy, the Dauphiné and Provence. In 1349 the Dauphiné fell to France, while in 1388 the county of Nice passed from Provence to the house of Savoy, which also then held Piedmont as well as other lands on the Italian side of the Alps. The struggle henceforth was limited to France and the house of Savoy, but little by little France succeeded in pushing back the house of Savoy across the Alps, forcing it to become a purely Italian power.
One turning-point in the rivalry was the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), by which France ceded to Savoy the Alpine districts of Exilles, Bardonnèche (Bardonecchia), Oulx, Fenestrelles, and Châtean Dauphin, while Savoy handed over to France the valley of Barcelonnette, situated on the western slope of the Alps and forming part of the county of Nice. The final act in this long-continued struggle took place in 1860, when France obtained by cession the rest of the county of Nice and also Savoy, thus remaining sole ruler on the western slope of the Alps.
Eastern Alps
The Eastern Alps had been included in the Frankish Empire since the 9th century. From the High Middle Ages and throughout the Early Modern era, the political history of the Eastern Alps can be considered almost totally in terms of the advance or retreat of the house of Habsburg. The Habsburgers' original home was in the lower valley of the Aar, at Habsburg castle. They lost that district to the Swiss in 1415, as they had previously lost various other sections of what is now Switzerland. But they built an impressive empire in the Eastern Alps, where they defeated numerous minor dynasties. They won the duchy of Austria with Styria in 1282, Carinthia and Carniola in 1335, Tirol in 1363, and the Vorarlberg in bits from 1375 to 1523, not to speak of minor "rectifications" of frontiers on the northern slope of the Alps. But on the other slope their progress was slower, and finally less successful. It is true that they won Primiero quite early (1373), as well as (1517) the Ampezzo Valley and several towns to the south of Trento. In 1797 they obtained Venetia proper, in 1803 the secularized bishoprics of Trento and Brixen (as well as that of Salzburg, more to the north), besides the Valtellina region, and in 1815 the Bergamasque valleys, while the Milanese had belonged to them since 1535. But in 1859 they lost to the house of Savoy both the Milanese and the Bergamasca, and in 1866 Venetia proper also, so that the Trentino was then their chief possession on the southern slope of the Alps. The gain of the Milanese in 1859 by the future king of Italy (1861) meant that Italy then won the valley of Livigno (between the Upper Engadine and Bormio), which is the only important bit it holds on the non-Italian slope of the Alps, besides the county of Tenda (obtained in 1575, and not lost in 1860), with the heads of certain glens in the Maritime Alps, reserved in 1860 for reasons connected with hunting. Following World War I and the demise of Austria-Hungary, there were important territorial changes in the Eastern Alps.
Modern history (1900 to present)
Population
For the modern era it is possible to offer a quantitative estimate of the population of the Alpine region. Within the area delimited by the Alpine Convention, there were about 3.1 million inhabitants in 1500, 5.8 in 1800, 8.5 in 1900 and 13.9 in 2000.
Sixteenth-century scholars, especially those from cities near the Alps, began to show a greater interest for the mountain phenomena. Their curiosity was also aroused by important questions of the genesis of the earth and the interpretation of the Bible. By the eighteenth century, a distinctive enthusiasm for nature and the Alps spread in European society. An example thereof is the famous multi-volume work "Voyages dans les Alpes" (1779–1796) by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure. In his work the naturalist from Geneva described, among other things, his 1787 ascent of Mont Blanc at 4800 metres above sea level. This new interest is also reflected in literature, most notably by Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s best-selling romantic novel "Julie, ou la nouvelle Heloise" (1761). These cultural developments resulted in a growth of interest in the Alps as a travel destination and laid the foundation for modern tourism. As Europe was getting increasingly more urbanised, the Alps distinguished themselves as a place of nature. During the colonial expansion many mountains in Asia, Australia and America were now named after the Alps as well.
During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries several important changes occurred. First, the Alpine population was now characterised by a particular growth rate, which was increasingly differentiated from that of the more dynamic non-mountain areas. Second, the migratory fluxes became ever more important and ever more directed toward extra-European destinations. Beginning in the early twentieth century, several regions were affected by depopulation. This process amplified the imbalanced distribution of the population within the Alps, because the urban centres at lower altitudes experienced strong growth and clearly became the most important dynamic localities during the twentieth century.
Economy
The economy showed many signs of change too. First of all, the agriculture sector started to lose importance, and sought to survive by introducing specialised crops in valley bottoms and reinforcing cattle-raising at higher altitudes. This profound transformation was obviously due to the spread of industrialisation in Europe during the nineteenth century, which had its impact on the Alps, directly or indirectly. On the one hand, activities such as iron manufacturing, which had become prominent during the early modern era, reached their limits due to transportation costs and the increasing scale of business operations. On the other hand, at the turn of the twentieth century, new opportunities emerged for the manufacturing sector, due largely to electric power, one among the main innovations of the second industrial revolution. Abundant water and steep slopes made the Alps an ideal environment for the production of hydroelectric power. Hence many industrial sites appeared there.
However, it was undoubtedly the service sector that experienced the most important new development within the Alpine economy: the rapid rise of tourism. The first phase was dominated by summertime visits and, by about 1850, the expansion of Alpine health resorts and spas. Later, tourism started to shift to the winter season, particularly after the introduction of ski-lifts in early twentieth century. For a long time, transit traffic and trade had been an essential part of the service sector in the Alps. The traditional routes and activities began to face strong competition from the construction of railway lines and tunnels such as the Semmering (1854), the Brenner (1867), the Fréjus/Mont-Cenis (1871), the Gotthard (1882), the Simplon (1906) and the Tauern (1909). In 2016 opened the 57 km long Gotthard Base Tunnel. With a maximum elevation of only 549 metres above sea level, it is the first flat direct route through the Alpine barrier.
In general, it is noteworthy that even if modern industry – tourism, the railway and later the highway system – represented opportunities for the Alps, complementing its traditional openness to new challenges, it also produced negative consequences, such as the human impact on the environment.
Political history
Like other parts of Europe, the Alpine region was affected by the formation of the nation states that produced tensions between various groups and had consequences for border areas. In these regions, the coercive power of the state was felt much more strongly that it had been before. Borders lost their permeability and now bisected areas formerly characterised by a shared sense of community and ongoing exchanges. During World War I the eastern Alpine region was one of the epicentres of the conflict.
After World War II, the Alps entered a new phase. At one and the same time, regional identities were reinforced and a common Alpine identity was constructed. A remarkable step was made in 1991 with the signing of the Alpine Convention between all Alpine countries and the European Union. This process was strengthened by the appearance of a new set of cultural values for the Alps. In the nineteenth century, there had been a tension between the romantic advocates of the "sacredness" of the Alpine peaks (such as John Ruskin), and modern mountain climbers (such as Leslie Stephen), who promoted the notion of the Alps as the "playground of Europe". In the twentieth century, the mountains acquired a clearly positive, iconic, status as places unsullied by undesirable urban influences such as pollution, noise and so on.
Tourism and alpinism
The fascination that the Alps exerted on the British has to be related to the general increase in charm and appeal of this mountain range during the eighteenth century. Yet British particularities were involved as well. Traditionally, many Englishmen felt the attraction of the Mediterranean, which was associated with the practice of the Grand Tour, and thus had to cross Europe and the Alps to reach it. From a place of transit, the Alps turned into a tourist destination as the flow of people and means of transport increased. Moreover, with the invention of new sports the Alps became an area of experimental training. The Alps offered many mountain climbers a degree of difficulty that fit their expectations.
The convergence of these phenomena granted to Alpine tourism a central position. It intensified from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards and, in spite of fluctuations, would never lose its importance. Railway companies, travel guides, travelogues and travel agents joined forces to make the Alps a prestigious tourist destination. With Thomas Cook in particular, the Alps appeared, as early as 1861, in the catalog of tourist offers and were instrumental in the establishment of a "truly international industry" of tourism. This industry developed the infrastructure: railway lines, hotels and other services such as casinos, promenades, improvements, and funiculars.
The conquest of the Alps by British tourists was achieved along with their domestication and with the passionate participation of local, regional and national élites, be they political, economic or cultural. Leslie Stephen, in a best-selling book first published in 1871, defined the Alps as "the Playground of Europe". The book highlights the incredible success of the mountains but it also reflects the tensions that emerged among their visitors. There was a clash between the "real enthusiasts", sensitive to beauty, and the "flock of ordinary tourists" sticking to their customs and comforts.
During the twentieth century, then, the Alps were involved in the globalisation of tourism, a process that caused the multiplication of its destinations. However, in the British population these mountains retained an undeniable attraction. In fact, the British continued to view winter sports in particular (such as skiing, skating, bobsleigh, curling) as significant grounds for justifying their travel and their perpetuation of a unique culture. The personalities of Gavin de Beer and Arnold Lunn represent this attitude through a prolific interpretation of this mountain range from every possible perspective. Indeed, the British have never ceased to love and be attracted to the Alps. This is not likely to end soon, if the advertisements and presentations of the major Alpine resorts that intersperse the Sunday editions of the major newspapers are any indicator.
Linguistic history
Further information: Linguistic geography of Switzerland
The Alps are at the crossroads of the French, Italian, German and South Slavic linguistic sprachraums. They also act as a linguistic refugium, preserving archaic dialects such as Romansh, Walser German or Romance Lombardic. Extinct languages known to have been spoken in the Alpine region include Rhaetic, Lepontic, Ligurian and Langobardic.
As a result of the complicated history of the Alpine region, the native language and the national feelings of the inhabitants do not always correspond to the current international borders. The Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol region, which was annexed by Italy after World War I, has a German-speaking majority in the northern province of South Tyrol. There are Walser German speakers to found in northern Italy near the Swiss border. There are some French and Franco-Provencal-speaking districts in the Italian Aosta Valley, while there are clusters of Slovene-speakers in the Italian portion of the Julian Alps, in the Resia Valley (where the archaic Resian dialect of Slovene is still spoken) and in the mountain district known as Venetian Slovenia.
Fontego dei Tedeschi / Fondaco dei Tedeschi / Warehouse of the Germans, Calle del Fontego dei Tedeschi, San Marco, 30100 Venezia VE, IT 25/80
Venezia / Venice 360° - Terrazza Panoramica / Panoramic Rooftop Terrace Views 21/72
w. Canal Grande / Grand Canal, Campanile / Bell Tower of Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Carmini o del Carmelo / Church of St. Mary of of the Carmelite (Dorsoduro), Ponte di Rialto / Rialto Bridge, Palazzo dei Dieci Savi, Chiesa di San Pantaleone Martire or San Pantalon / Church of St. Panteleimon, Campanile della Chiesa di San Silvestro / Bell Tower of Church of St. Sylvester, Campanile della Chiesa Rettoriale di San Paolo Apostolo / Bell Tower of Rectorial Church of St. Paul of the Apostle aka San Polo, Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari / Basilica of Glorious St. Mary of the Brothers (San Polo), Campanile della Chiesa di Sant'Aponal / Bell Tower of Church of St. Apollinaris of Ravenna, Cupole della Chiesa di San Simeone e Giuda vulgo San Simeon Piccolo / Domes of Church of Sts. Simeon and Jude
Fontego dei Tedeschi / Fondaco dei Tedeschi / Warehouse of the Germans, Calle del Fontego dei Tedeschi, San Marco, 30100 Venezia VE, IT 06/80
Venezia / Venice 360° - Terrazza Panoramica / Panoramic Rooftop Terrace Views 02/72
w. San Zanipoło or Zanipolo / Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo / Basilica Church of Sts. John and Paul, Campanile della Chiesa di San Francesco della Vigna / Bell Tower of Church of St. Francis at the Vineyard, Chiesa Parrocchiale di Santa Maria Formosa o Chiesa della Purificazione di Maria / Church of Santa Maria Formosa or Parish Church of the Purification of Mary, Tower of Chiesa di Sant'Antonino Martire / Church of St. Antoninus Martyr, Chiesa e Campanile pendente di San Giorgio dei Greci / Church and lean Tower of Church of St. George of the Greeks at Rio dei Greci, Chiesa di San Zaccaria, Chiesa di Santa Maria della Fava fka Santa Maria della Consolazione / Church of St. Mary of Fava fka St. Mary of Consolation
The Alps are the highest and most extensive mountain range that is entirely in Europe, stretching approximately 1,200 km (750 mi) across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia.
The Alpine arch extends from Nice on the western Mediterranean to Trieste on the Adriatic and Vienna at the beginning of the Pannonian Basin. The mountains were formed over tens of millions of years as the African and Eurasian tectonic plates collided. Extreme shortening caused by the event resulted in marine sedimentary rocks rising by thrusting and folding into high mountain peaks such as Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn.
Mont Blanc spans the French–Italian border, and at 4,809 m (15,778 ft) is the highest mountain in the Alps. The Alpine region area contains 128 peaks higher than 4,000 m (13,000 ft).
The altitude and size of the range affect the climate in Europe; in the mountains, precipitation levels vary greatly and climatic conditions consist of distinct zones. Wildlife such as ibex live in the higher peaks to elevations of 3,400 m (11,155 ft), and plants such as edelweiss grow in rocky areas in lower elevations as well as in higher elevations.
Evidence of human habitation in the Alps goes back to the Palaeolithic era. A mummified man ("Ötzi"), determined to be 5,000 years old, was discovered on a glacier at the Austrian–Italian border in 1991.
By the 6th century BC, the Celtic La Tène culture was well established. Hannibal notably crossed the Alps with a herd of elephants, and the Romans had settlements in the region. In 1800, Napoleon crossed one of the mountain passes with an army of 40,000. The 18th and 19th centuries saw an influx of naturalists, writers, and artists, in particular, the Romantics, followed by the golden age of alpinism as mountaineers began to ascend the peaks of the Alps.
The Alpine region has a strong cultural identity. Traditional practices such as farming, cheesemaking, and woodworking still thrive in Alpine villages. However, the tourist industry began to grow early in the 20th century and expanded significantly after World War II, eventually becoming the dominant industry by the end of the century.
The Winter Olympic Games have been hosted in the Swiss, French, Italian, Austrian and German Alps. As of 2010, the region is home to 14 million people and has 120 million annual visitors.
The valleys of the Alps have been inhabited since prehistoric times. The Alpine culture, which developed there, centers on transhumance.
Currently the Alps are divided among eight countries: France, Monaco, Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany and Slovenia. In 1991 the Alpine Convention was established to regulate this transnational area, whose area measures about 190,000 square kilometres (73,000 sq mi).
Early history (before 1200)
The Wildkirchli caves in the Appenzell Alps show traces of Neanderthal habitation (about 40,000 BCE). During the Würm glaciation (up to c. 11700 BP), the entire Alps were covered in ice. Anatomically modern humans reach the Alpine region by c. 30,000 years ago. MtDNA Haplogroup K (believed to have originated in the mid-Upper Paleolithic, between about 30,000 and 22,000 years ago, with an estimated age here of c. 12,000 years BP), is a genetic marker associated with southeastern Alpine region.
Traces of transhumance appear in the neolithic. In the Bronze Age, the Alps formed the boundary of the Urnfield and Terramare cultures. The mummy found on the Ötztal Alps, known as "Ötzi the Iceman", lived c. 3200 BC. At that stage the population in its majority had already changed from an economy based on hunting and gathering to one based on agriculture and animal husbandry. It is still an open question whether forms of pastoral mobility, such as transhumance (alpiculture), already existed in prehistory.
The earliest historical accounts date to the Roman period, mostly due to Greco-Roman ethnography, with some epigraphic evidence due to the Raetians, Lepontii and Gauls, with Ligurians and Venetii occupying the fringes in the south-west and south-east, respectively (Cisalpine Gaul) during the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. The Rock Drawings in Valcamonica date to this period. A few details have come down to modern scholars of the conquest of many of the Alpine tribes by Augustus, as well as Hannibal's battles across the Alps. Most of the local Gallic tribes allied themselves with the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War, for the duration of which Rome lost control over most of Northern Italy. The Roman conquest of Italy was only complete after the Roman victory over Carthage, by the 190s BC.
Between 35 and 6 BC, the Alpine region was gradually integrated into the expanding Roman Empire. The contemporary monument Tropaeum Alpium in La Turbie celebrates the victory won by the Romans over 46 tribes in these mountains. The subsequent construction of roads over the Alpine passes first permitted southern and northern Roman settlements in the Alps to be connected, and eventually integrated the inhabitants of the Alps into the culture of the Empire. The upper Rhône Valley or Vallis Poenina fell to the Romans after a battle at Octodurus (Martigny) in 57 BC. Aosta was founded in 25 BC as Augusta Praetoria Salassorum in the former territory of the Salassi. Raetia was conquered in 15 BC.
With the division of the Roman Empire and the collapse of its Western part in the fourth and fifth centuries, power relations in the Alpine region reverted to their local dimensions. Often dioceses became important centres. While in Italy and Southern France, dioceses in the Western Alps were established early (beginning in the fourth century) and resulted in numerous small sees, in the Eastern Alps such foundations continued into the thirteenth century and the dioceses were usually larger. New monasteries in the mountain valleys also promoted the Christianisation of the population.[3] In that period the core area of supra-regional political powers was mainly situated north of the Alps, first in the Carolingian Empire and later, after its division, in France and the Holy Roman Empire. The German emperors, who received the imperial investiture from the Pope in Rome between the ninth and the fifteenth centuries, had to cross the Alps along with their entourages.
In the 7th century, much of the Eastern Alps were settled by Slavs. Between the 7th and 9th century, the Slavic principality of Carantania existed as one of the few non-Germanic polities in the Alps. The Alpine Slavs, who inhabited the majority of present-day Austria and Slovenia, were gradually Germanized from the 9th to the 14th century. The modern Slovenes are their southernmost descendants.
The successive emigration and occupation of the Alpine region by the Alemanni from the 6th to the 8th centuries are, too, known only in outline. For "mainstream" history, the Frankish and later the Habsburg empire, the Alps had strategic importance as an obstacle, not as a landscape, and the Alpine passes have consequently had great significance militarily.
Between 889 and 973, a community of Muslim raiders operating from their base of Fraxinetum, on the coast of Provence, blocked the Alpine passes to Christian travellers until their expulsion by Christian forces led by Arduin Glaber in 973, at which point transalpine trade was able to resume.
Not until the final breakup of the Carolingian Empire in the 10th and 11th centuries is it possible to trace out the local history of different parts of the Alps, notably with the High Medieval Walser migrations.
Later Medieval to Early Modern Era (1200 to 1900)
The French historian Fernand Braudel, in his famous volume on Mediterranean civilisation, describes the Alps as "an exceptional range of mountains from the point of view of resources, collective disciplines, the quality of its human population and the number of good roads." This remarkable human presence in the Alpine region came into being with the population growth and agrarian expansion of the High Middle Ages. At first a mixed form of agriculture and animal husbandry dominated the economy. Then, from the Late Middle Ages onwards, cattle tended to replace sheep as the dominant animals. In a few regions of the northern slope of the Alps, cattle farming became increasingly oriented toward long-range markets and substituted agriculture completely. At the same time other types of interregional and transalpine exchange were growing in significance. The most important pass was the Brenner, which could accommodate cart traffic beginning in the fifteenth century. In the Western and Central Alps, the passes were practicable only by pack animals up to the period around 1800.
The process of state formation in the Alps was driven by the proximity to focal areas of European conflicts such as in the Italian wars of 1494–1559. In that period the socio-political structures of Alpine regions drifted apart. One can identify three different developmental models: one of princely centralization (Western Alps), a local-communal one (Switzerland) and an intermediate one, characterised by a powerful nobility (Eastern Alps).
Until the late nineteenth century many Alpine valleys remained mainly shaped by agrarian and pastoral activities. Population growth favoured the intensification of land use and the spread of corn, potato and cheese production. The shorter growing season at higher altitudes did not seem to be an impediment until around 1700. Later, however, it became a major obstacle to the further intensification of agriculture, especially in comparison to the surrounding lowlands where land productivity increased rapidly. Inside the Alpine region there was a striking difference between the western and central parts, which were dominated by small farming establishments, and the eastern part, which were characterised by medium or big farms. Migration to the urbanised zones of the surrounding areas was already apparent before 1500 and was often temporary. In the Alps themselves, urbanisation was slow.
Central Alps
In the Central Alps the chief event, on the northern side of the chain, is the gradual formation from 1291 to 1516 of the Swiss Confederacy, at least so far as regards the mountain cantons, and with especial reference to the independent confederations of the Grisons and the Valais, which only became full members of the Confederation in 1803 and 1815 respectively. The attraction of the south was too strong for both the Forest Cantons and the Grisons, so that both tried to secure, and actually did secure, various bits of the Milanese.
The Gotthard Pass was known in antiquity as Adula Mons, but it was not one of the important Alpine passes due to the impassability of the Schöllenen Gorge north of the pass. This changed dramatically with the construction of the so-called Devil's Bridge by the year 1230. Almost immediately, in 1231, the formerly unimportant valley of Uri was granted imperial immediacy and became the main route connecting Germany and Italy. Also in 1230, a hospice dedicated to Gotthard of Hildesheim was built on the pass to accommodate the pilgrims to Rome which now took this route. The sudden strategical importance for the European powers gained by what is now Central Switzerland was an important factor in the formation of the Old Swiss Confederacy beginning in the late 13th century.
In the 15th century, the Forest Cantons won the Valle Leventina as well as Bellinzona and the Valle di Blenio (though the Valle d'Ossola was held for a time only). Blenio was added to the Val Bregaglia (which had been given to the bishop of Coire in 960 by the emperor Otto I), along with the valleys of Valle Mesolcina and of Val Poschiavo.
Western Alps
Further information: County of Savoy and Duchy of Savoy
In the case of the Western Alps (excluding the part from the chain of Mont Blanc to the Simplon Pass, which followed the fortunes of the Valais), a prolonged struggle for control took place between the feudal lords of Savoy, the Dauphiné and Provence. In 1349 the Dauphiné fell to France, while in 1388 the county of Nice passed from Provence to the house of Savoy, which also then held Piedmont as well as other lands on the Italian side of the Alps. The struggle henceforth was limited to France and the house of Savoy, but little by little France succeeded in pushing back the house of Savoy across the Alps, forcing it to become a purely Italian power.
One turning-point in the rivalry was the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), by which France ceded to Savoy the Alpine districts of Exilles, Bardonnèche (Bardonecchia), Oulx, Fenestrelles, and Châtean Dauphin, while Savoy handed over to France the valley of Barcelonnette, situated on the western slope of the Alps and forming part of the county of Nice. The final act in this long-continued struggle took place in 1860, when France obtained by cession the rest of the county of Nice and also Savoy, thus remaining sole ruler on the western slope of the Alps.
Eastern Alps
The Eastern Alps had been included in the Frankish Empire since the 9th century. From the High Middle Ages and throughout the Early Modern era, the political history of the Eastern Alps can be considered almost totally in terms of the advance or retreat of the house of Habsburg. The Habsburgers' original home was in the lower valley of the Aar, at Habsburg castle. They lost that district to the Swiss in 1415, as they had previously lost various other sections of what is now Switzerland. But they built an impressive empire in the Eastern Alps, where they defeated numerous minor dynasties. They won the duchy of Austria with Styria in 1282, Carinthia and Carniola in 1335, Tirol in 1363, and the Vorarlberg in bits from 1375 to 1523, not to speak of minor "rectifications" of frontiers on the northern slope of the Alps. But on the other slope their progress was slower, and finally less successful. It is true that they won Primiero quite early (1373), as well as (1517) the Ampezzo Valley and several towns to the south of Trento. In 1797 they obtained Venetia proper, in 1803 the secularized bishoprics of Trento and Brixen (as well as that of Salzburg, more to the north), besides the Valtellina region, and in 1815 the Bergamasque valleys, while the Milanese had belonged to them since 1535. But in 1859 they lost to the house of Savoy both the Milanese and the Bergamasca, and in 1866 Venetia proper also, so that the Trentino was then their chief possession on the southern slope of the Alps. The gain of the Milanese in 1859 by the future king of Italy (1861) meant that Italy then won the valley of Livigno (between the Upper Engadine and Bormio), which is the only important bit it holds on the non-Italian slope of the Alps, besides the county of Tenda (obtained in 1575, and not lost in 1860), with the heads of certain glens in the Maritime Alps, reserved in 1860 for reasons connected with hunting. Following World War I and the demise of Austria-Hungary, there were important territorial changes in the Eastern Alps.
Modern history (1900 to present)
Population
For the modern era it is possible to offer a quantitative estimate of the population of the Alpine region. Within the area delimited by the Alpine Convention, there were about 3.1 million inhabitants in 1500, 5.8 in 1800, 8.5 in 1900 and 13.9 in 2000.
Sixteenth-century scholars, especially those from cities near the Alps, began to show a greater interest for the mountain phenomena. Their curiosity was also aroused by important questions of the genesis of the earth and the interpretation of the Bible. By the eighteenth century, a distinctive enthusiasm for nature and the Alps spread in European society. An example thereof is the famous multi-volume work "Voyages dans les Alpes" (1779–1796) by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure. In his work the naturalist from Geneva described, among other things, his 1787 ascent of Mont Blanc at 4800 metres above sea level. This new interest is also reflected in literature, most notably by Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s best-selling romantic novel "Julie, ou la nouvelle Heloise" (1761). These cultural developments resulted in a growth of interest in the Alps as a travel destination and laid the foundation for modern tourism. As Europe was getting increasingly more urbanised, the Alps distinguished themselves as a place of nature. During the colonial expansion many mountains in Asia, Australia and America were now named after the Alps as well.
During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries several important changes occurred. First, the Alpine population was now characterised by a particular growth rate, which was increasingly differentiated from that of the more dynamic non-mountain areas. Second, the migratory fluxes became ever more important and ever more directed toward extra-European destinations. Beginning in the early twentieth century, several regions were affected by depopulation. This process amplified the imbalanced distribution of the population within the Alps, because the urban centres at lower altitudes experienced strong growth and clearly became the most important dynamic localities during the twentieth century.
Economy
The economy showed many signs of change too. First of all, the agriculture sector started to lose importance, and sought to survive by introducing specialised crops in valley bottoms and reinforcing cattle-raising at higher altitudes. This profound transformation was obviously due to the spread of industrialisation in Europe during the nineteenth century, which had its impact on the Alps, directly or indirectly. On the one hand, activities such as iron manufacturing, which had become prominent during the early modern era, reached their limits due to transportation costs and the increasing scale of business operations. On the other hand, at the turn of the twentieth century, new opportunities emerged for the manufacturing sector, due largely to electric power, one among the main innovations of the second industrial revolution. Abundant water and steep slopes made the Alps an ideal environment for the production of hydroelectric power. Hence many industrial sites appeared there.
However, it was undoubtedly the service sector that experienced the most important new development within the Alpine economy: the rapid rise of tourism. The first phase was dominated by summertime visits and, by about 1850, the expansion of Alpine health resorts and spas. Later, tourism started to shift to the winter season, particularly after the introduction of ski-lifts in early twentieth century. For a long time, transit traffic and trade had been an essential part of the service sector in the Alps. The traditional routes and activities began to face strong competition from the construction of railway lines and tunnels such as the Semmering (1854), the Brenner (1867), the Fréjus/Mont-Cenis (1871), the Gotthard (1882), the Simplon (1906) and the Tauern (1909). In 2016 opened the 57 km long Gotthard Base Tunnel. With a maximum elevation of only 549 metres above sea level, it is the first flat direct route through the Alpine barrier.
In general, it is noteworthy that even if modern industry – tourism, the railway and later the highway system – represented opportunities for the Alps, complementing its traditional openness to new challenges, it also produced negative consequences, such as the human impact on the environment.
Political history
Like other parts of Europe, the Alpine region was affected by the formation of the nation states that produced tensions between various groups and had consequences for border areas. In these regions, the coercive power of the state was felt much more strongly that it had been before. Borders lost their permeability and now bisected areas formerly characterised by a shared sense of community and ongoing exchanges. During World War I the eastern Alpine region was one of the epicentres of the conflict.
After World War II, the Alps entered a new phase. At one and the same time, regional identities were reinforced and a common Alpine identity was constructed. A remarkable step was made in 1991 with the signing of the Alpine Convention between all Alpine countries and the European Union. This process was strengthened by the appearance of a new set of cultural values for the Alps. In the nineteenth century, there had been a tension between the romantic advocates of the "sacredness" of the Alpine peaks (such as John Ruskin), and modern mountain climbers (such as Leslie Stephen), who promoted the notion of the Alps as the "playground of Europe". In the twentieth century, the mountains acquired a clearly positive, iconic, status as places unsullied by undesirable urban influences such as pollution, noise and so on.
Tourism and alpinism
The fascination that the Alps exerted on the British has to be related to the general increase in charm and appeal of this mountain range during the eighteenth century. Yet British particularities were involved as well. Traditionally, many Englishmen felt the attraction of the Mediterranean, which was associated with the practice of the Grand Tour, and thus had to cross Europe and the Alps to reach it. From a place of transit, the Alps turned into a tourist destination as the flow of people and means of transport increased. Moreover, with the invention of new sports the Alps became an area of experimental training. The Alps offered many mountain climbers a degree of difficulty that fit their expectations.
The convergence of these phenomena granted to Alpine tourism a central position. It intensified from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards and, in spite of fluctuations, would never lose its importance. Railway companies, travel guides, travelogues and travel agents joined forces to make the Alps a prestigious tourist destination. With Thomas Cook in particular, the Alps appeared, as early as 1861, in the catalog of tourist offers and were instrumental in the establishment of a "truly international industry" of tourism. This industry developed the infrastructure: railway lines, hotels and other services such as casinos, promenades, improvements, and funiculars.
The conquest of the Alps by British tourists was achieved along with their domestication and with the passionate participation of local, regional and national élites, be they political, economic or cultural. Leslie Stephen, in a best-selling book first published in 1871, defined the Alps as "the Playground of Europe". The book highlights the incredible success of the mountains but it also reflects the tensions that emerged among their visitors. There was a clash between the "real enthusiasts", sensitive to beauty, and the "flock of ordinary tourists" sticking to their customs and comforts.
During the twentieth century, then, the Alps were involved in the globalisation of tourism, a process that caused the multiplication of its destinations. However, in the British population these mountains retained an undeniable attraction. In fact, the British continued to view winter sports in particular (such as skiing, skating, bobsleigh, curling) as significant grounds for justifying their travel and their perpetuation of a unique culture. The personalities of Gavin de Beer and Arnold Lunn represent this attitude through a prolific interpretation of this mountain range from every possible perspective. Indeed, the British have never ceased to love and be attracted to the Alps. This is not likely to end soon, if the advertisements and presentations of the major Alpine resorts that intersperse the Sunday editions of the major newspapers are any indicator.
Linguistic history
Further information: Linguistic geography of Switzerland
The Alps are at the crossroads of the French, Italian, German and South Slavic linguistic sprachraums. They also act as a linguistic refugium, preserving archaic dialects such as Romansh, Walser German or Romance Lombardic. Extinct languages known to have been spoken in the Alpine region include Rhaetic, Lepontic, Ligurian and Langobardic.
As a result of the complicated history of the Alpine region, the native language and the national feelings of the inhabitants do not always correspond to the current international borders. The Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol region, which was annexed by Italy after World War I, has a German-speaking majority in the northern province of South Tyrol. There are Walser German speakers to found in northern Italy near the Swiss border. There are some French and Franco-Provencal-speaking districts in the Italian Aosta Valley, while there are clusters of Slovene-speakers in the Italian portion of the Julian Alps, in the Resia Valley (where the archaic Resian dialect of Slovene is still spoken) and in the mountain district known as Venetian Slovenia.
Azienda del Consorzio Trasporti Veneziano (ACTV) Linea / Line 2 Vaporetto Ride - Linee / Lines 2, 5.1, 6, 10 & N Fermata Vaporetto Zattere criss-cross Canale della Giudecca / Canal de ła Zueca / Giudecca Canal tow. San Marco-San Zaccaria 24/41
Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute / Basilica Church of St. Mary of Health, Dorsoduro 1, 30123 Venezia VE, IT 01/02
Dogana da Mar aka Punta della Dogana / Old Customs House of Venice, Dorsoduro 2, 30123 Venezia VE, IT 01/04
w. Campanile pendente di Santo Stefano / leaning Bell Tower of Church of St. Stephen (San Marco)
The Alps are the highest and most extensive mountain range that is entirely in Europe, stretching approximately 1,200 km (750 mi) across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia.
The Alpine arch extends from Nice on the western Mediterranean to Trieste on the Adriatic and Vienna at the beginning of the Pannonian Basin. The mountains were formed over tens of millions of years as the African and Eurasian tectonic plates collided. Extreme shortening caused by the event resulted in marine sedimentary rocks rising by thrusting and folding into high mountain peaks such as Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn.
Mont Blanc spans the French–Italian border, and at 4,809 m (15,778 ft) is the highest mountain in the Alps. The Alpine region area contains 128 peaks higher than 4,000 m (13,000 ft).
The altitude and size of the range affect the climate in Europe; in the mountains, precipitation levels vary greatly and climatic conditions consist of distinct zones. Wildlife such as ibex live in the higher peaks to elevations of 3,400 m (11,155 ft), and plants such as edelweiss grow in rocky areas in lower elevations as well as in higher elevations.
Evidence of human habitation in the Alps goes back to the Palaeolithic era. A mummified man ("Ötzi"), determined to be 5,000 years old, was discovered on a glacier at the Austrian–Italian border in 1991.
By the 6th century BC, the Celtic La Tène culture was well established. Hannibal notably crossed the Alps with a herd of elephants, and the Romans had settlements in the region. In 1800, Napoleon crossed one of the mountain passes with an army of 40,000. The 18th and 19th centuries saw an influx of naturalists, writers, and artists, in particular, the Romantics, followed by the golden age of alpinism as mountaineers began to ascend the peaks of the Alps.
The Alpine region has a strong cultural identity. Traditional practices such as farming, cheesemaking, and woodworking still thrive in Alpine villages. However, the tourist industry began to grow early in the 20th century and expanded significantly after World War II, eventually becoming the dominant industry by the end of the century.
The Winter Olympic Games have been hosted in the Swiss, French, Italian, Austrian and German Alps. As of 2010, the region is home to 14 million people and has 120 million annual visitors.
The valleys of the Alps have been inhabited since prehistoric times. The Alpine culture, which developed there, centers on transhumance.
Currently the Alps are divided among eight countries: France, Monaco, Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany and Slovenia. In 1991 the Alpine Convention was established to regulate this transnational area, whose area measures about 190,000 square kilometres (73,000 sq mi).
Early history (before 1200)
The Wildkirchli caves in the Appenzell Alps show traces of Neanderthal habitation (about 40,000 BCE). During the Würm glaciation (up to c. 11700 BP), the entire Alps were covered in ice. Anatomically modern humans reach the Alpine region by c. 30,000 years ago. MtDNA Haplogroup K (believed to have originated in the mid-Upper Paleolithic, between about 30,000 and 22,000 years ago, with an estimated age here of c. 12,000 years BP), is a genetic marker associated with southeastern Alpine region.
Traces of transhumance appear in the neolithic. In the Bronze Age, the Alps formed the boundary of the Urnfield and Terramare cultures. The mummy found on the Ötztal Alps, known as "Ötzi the Iceman", lived c. 3200 BC. At that stage the population in its majority had already changed from an economy based on hunting and gathering to one based on agriculture and animal husbandry. It is still an open question whether forms of pastoral mobility, such as transhumance (alpiculture), already existed in prehistory.
The earliest historical accounts date to the Roman period, mostly due to Greco-Roman ethnography, with some epigraphic evidence due to the Raetians, Lepontii and Gauls, with Ligurians and Venetii occupying the fringes in the south-west and south-east, respectively (Cisalpine Gaul) during the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. The Rock Drawings in Valcamonica date to this period. A few details have come down to modern scholars of the conquest of many of the Alpine tribes by Augustus, as well as Hannibal's battles across the Alps. Most of the local Gallic tribes allied themselves with the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War, for the duration of which Rome lost control over most of Northern Italy. The Roman conquest of Italy was only complete after the Roman victory over Carthage, by the 190s BC.
Between 35 and 6 BC, the Alpine region was gradually integrated into the expanding Roman Empire. The contemporary monument Tropaeum Alpium in La Turbie celebrates the victory won by the Romans over 46 tribes in these mountains. The subsequent construction of roads over the Alpine passes first permitted southern and northern Roman settlements in the Alps to be connected, and eventually integrated the inhabitants of the Alps into the culture of the Empire. The upper Rhône Valley or Vallis Poenina fell to the Romans after a battle at Octodurus (Martigny) in 57 BC. Aosta was founded in 25 BC as Augusta Praetoria Salassorum in the former territory of the Salassi. Raetia was conquered in 15 BC.
With the division of the Roman Empire and the collapse of its Western part in the fourth and fifth centuries, power relations in the Alpine region reverted to their local dimensions. Often dioceses became important centres. While in Italy and Southern France, dioceses in the Western Alps were established early (beginning in the fourth century) and resulted in numerous small sees, in the Eastern Alps such foundations continued into the thirteenth century and the dioceses were usually larger. New monasteries in the mountain valleys also promoted the Christianisation of the population.[3] In that period the core area of supra-regional political powers was mainly situated north of the Alps, first in the Carolingian Empire and later, after its division, in France and the Holy Roman Empire. The German emperors, who received the imperial investiture from the Pope in Rome between the ninth and the fifteenth centuries, had to cross the Alps along with their entourages.
In the 7th century, much of the Eastern Alps were settled by Slavs. Between the 7th and 9th century, the Slavic principality of Carantania existed as one of the few non-Germanic polities in the Alps. The Alpine Slavs, who inhabited the majority of present-day Austria and Slovenia, were gradually Germanized from the 9th to the 14th century. The modern Slovenes are their southernmost descendants.
The successive emigration and occupation of the Alpine region by the Alemanni from the 6th to the 8th centuries are, too, known only in outline. For "mainstream" history, the Frankish and later the Habsburg empire, the Alps had strategic importance as an obstacle, not as a landscape, and the Alpine passes have consequently had great significance militarily.
Between 889 and 973, a community of Muslim raiders operating from their base of Fraxinetum, on the coast of Provence, blocked the Alpine passes to Christian travellers until their expulsion by Christian forces led by Arduin Glaber in 973, at which point transalpine trade was able to resume.
Not until the final breakup of the Carolingian Empire in the 10th and 11th centuries is it possible to trace out the local history of different parts of the Alps, notably with the High Medieval Walser migrations.
Later Medieval to Early Modern Era (1200 to 1900)
The French historian Fernand Braudel, in his famous volume on Mediterranean civilisation, describes the Alps as "an exceptional range of mountains from the point of view of resources, collective disciplines, the quality of its human population and the number of good roads." This remarkable human presence in the Alpine region came into being with the population growth and agrarian expansion of the High Middle Ages. At first a mixed form of agriculture and animal husbandry dominated the economy. Then, from the Late Middle Ages onwards, cattle tended to replace sheep as the dominant animals. In a few regions of the northern slope of the Alps, cattle farming became increasingly oriented toward long-range markets and substituted agriculture completely. At the same time other types of interregional and transalpine exchange were growing in significance. The most important pass was the Brenner, which could accommodate cart traffic beginning in the fifteenth century. In the Western and Central Alps, the passes were practicable only by pack animals up to the period around 1800.
The process of state formation in the Alps was driven by the proximity to focal areas of European conflicts such as in the Italian wars of 1494–1559. In that period the socio-political structures of Alpine regions drifted apart. One can identify three different developmental models: one of princely centralization (Western Alps), a local-communal one (Switzerland) and an intermediate one, characterised by a powerful nobility (Eastern Alps).
Until the late nineteenth century many Alpine valleys remained mainly shaped by agrarian and pastoral activities. Population growth favoured the intensification of land use and the spread of corn, potato and cheese production. The shorter growing season at higher altitudes did not seem to be an impediment until around 1700. Later, however, it became a major obstacle to the further intensification of agriculture, especially in comparison to the surrounding lowlands where land productivity increased rapidly. Inside the Alpine region there was a striking difference between the western and central parts, which were dominated by small farming establishments, and the eastern part, which were characterised by medium or big farms. Migration to the urbanised zones of the surrounding areas was already apparent before 1500 and was often temporary. In the Alps themselves, urbanisation was slow.
Central Alps
In the Central Alps the chief event, on the northern side of the chain, is the gradual formation from 1291 to 1516 of the Swiss Confederacy, at least so far as regards the mountain cantons, and with especial reference to the independent confederations of the Grisons and the Valais, which only became full members of the Confederation in 1803 and 1815 respectively. The attraction of the south was too strong for both the Forest Cantons and the Grisons, so that both tried to secure, and actually did secure, various bits of the Milanese.
The Gotthard Pass was known in antiquity as Adula Mons, but it was not one of the important Alpine passes due to the impassability of the Schöllenen Gorge north of the pass. This changed dramatically with the construction of the so-called Devil's Bridge by the year 1230. Almost immediately, in 1231, the formerly unimportant valley of Uri was granted imperial immediacy and became the main route connecting Germany and Italy. Also in 1230, a hospice dedicated to Gotthard of Hildesheim was built on the pass to accommodate the pilgrims to Rome which now took this route. The sudden strategical importance for the European powers gained by what is now Central Switzerland was an important factor in the formation of the Old Swiss Confederacy beginning in the late 13th century.
In the 15th century, the Forest Cantons won the Valle Leventina as well as Bellinzona and the Valle di Blenio (though the Valle d'Ossola was held for a time only). Blenio was added to the Val Bregaglia (which had been given to the bishop of Coire in 960 by the emperor Otto I), along with the valleys of Valle Mesolcina and of Val Poschiavo.
Western Alps
Further information: County of Savoy and Duchy of Savoy
In the case of the Western Alps (excluding the part from the chain of Mont Blanc to the Simplon Pass, which followed the fortunes of the Valais), a prolonged struggle for control took place between the feudal lords of Savoy, the Dauphiné and Provence. In 1349 the Dauphiné fell to France, while in 1388 the county of Nice passed from Provence to the house of Savoy, which also then held Piedmont as well as other lands on the Italian side of the Alps. The struggle henceforth was limited to France and the house of Savoy, but little by little France succeeded in pushing back the house of Savoy across the Alps, forcing it to become a purely Italian power.
One turning-point in the rivalry was the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), by which France ceded to Savoy the Alpine districts of Exilles, Bardonnèche (Bardonecchia), Oulx, Fenestrelles, and Châtean Dauphin, while Savoy handed over to France the valley of Barcelonnette, situated on the western slope of the Alps and forming part of the county of Nice. The final act in this long-continued struggle took place in 1860, when France obtained by cession the rest of the county of Nice and also Savoy, thus remaining sole ruler on the western slope of the Alps.
Eastern Alps
The Eastern Alps had been included in the Frankish Empire since the 9th century. From the High Middle Ages and throughout the Early Modern era, the political history of the Eastern Alps can be considered almost totally in terms of the advance or retreat of the house of Habsburg. The Habsburgers' original home was in the lower valley of the Aar, at Habsburg castle. They lost that district to the Swiss in 1415, as they had previously lost various other sections of what is now Switzerland. But they built an impressive empire in the Eastern Alps, where they defeated numerous minor dynasties. They won the duchy of Austria with Styria in 1282, Carinthia and Carniola in 1335, Tirol in 1363, and the Vorarlberg in bits from 1375 to 1523, not to speak of minor "rectifications" of frontiers on the northern slope of the Alps. But on the other slope their progress was slower, and finally less successful. It is true that they won Primiero quite early (1373), as well as (1517) the Ampezzo Valley and several towns to the south of Trento. In 1797 they obtained Venetia proper, in 1803 the secularized bishoprics of Trento and Brixen (as well as that of Salzburg, more to the north), besides the Valtellina region, and in 1815 the Bergamasque valleys, while the Milanese had belonged to them since 1535. But in 1859 they lost to the house of Savoy both the Milanese and the Bergamasca, and in 1866 Venetia proper also, so that the Trentino was then their chief possession on the southern slope of the Alps. The gain of the Milanese in 1859 by the future king of Italy (1861) meant that Italy then won the valley of Livigno (between the Upper Engadine and Bormio), which is the only important bit it holds on the non-Italian slope of the Alps, besides the county of Tenda (obtained in 1575, and not lost in 1860), with the heads of certain glens in the Maritime Alps, reserved in 1860 for reasons connected with hunting. Following World War I and the demise of Austria-Hungary, there were important territorial changes in the Eastern Alps.
Modern history (1900 to present)
Population
For the modern era it is possible to offer a quantitative estimate of the population of the Alpine region. Within the area delimited by the Alpine Convention, there were about 3.1 million inhabitants in 1500, 5.8 in 1800, 8.5 in 1900 and 13.9 in 2000.
Sixteenth-century scholars, especially those from cities near the Alps, began to show a greater interest for the mountain phenomena. Their curiosity was also aroused by important questions of the genesis of the earth and the interpretation of the Bible. By the eighteenth century, a distinctive enthusiasm for nature and the Alps spread in European society. An example thereof is the famous multi-volume work "Voyages dans les Alpes" (1779–1796) by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure. In his work the naturalist from Geneva described, among other things, his 1787 ascent of Mont Blanc at 4800 metres above sea level. This new interest is also reflected in literature, most notably by Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s best-selling romantic novel "Julie, ou la nouvelle Heloise" (1761). These cultural developments resulted in a growth of interest in the Alps as a travel destination and laid the foundation for modern tourism. As Europe was getting increasingly more urbanised, the Alps distinguished themselves as a place of nature. During the colonial expansion many mountains in Asia, Australia and America were now named after the Alps as well.
During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries several important changes occurred. First, the Alpine population was now characterised by a particular growth rate, which was increasingly differentiated from that of the more dynamic non-mountain areas. Second, the migratory fluxes became ever more important and ever more directed toward extra-European destinations. Beginning in the early twentieth century, several regions were affected by depopulation. This process amplified the imbalanced distribution of the population within the Alps, because the urban centres at lower altitudes experienced strong growth and clearly became the most important dynamic localities during the twentieth century.
Economy
The economy showed many signs of change too. First of all, the agriculture sector started to lose importance, and sought to survive by introducing specialised crops in valley bottoms and reinforcing cattle-raising at higher altitudes. This profound transformation was obviously due to the spread of industrialisation in Europe during the nineteenth century, which had its impact on the Alps, directly or indirectly. On the one hand, activities such as iron manufacturing, which had become prominent during the early modern era, reached their limits due to transportation costs and the increasing scale of business operations. On the other hand, at the turn of the twentieth century, new opportunities emerged for the manufacturing sector, due largely to electric power, one among the main innovations of the second industrial revolution. Abundant water and steep slopes made the Alps an ideal environment for the production of hydroelectric power. Hence many industrial sites appeared there.
However, it was undoubtedly the service sector that experienced the most important new development within the Alpine economy: the rapid rise of tourism. The first phase was dominated by summertime visits and, by about 1850, the expansion of Alpine health resorts and spas. Later, tourism started to shift to the winter season, particularly after the introduction of ski-lifts in early twentieth century. For a long time, transit traffic and trade had been an essential part of the service sector in the Alps. The traditional routes and activities began to face strong competition from the construction of railway lines and tunnels such as the Semmering (1854), the Brenner (1867), the Fréjus/Mont-Cenis (1871), the Gotthard (1882), the Simplon (1906) and the Tauern (1909). In 2016 opened the 57 km long Gotthard Base Tunnel. With a maximum elevation of only 549 metres above sea level, it is the first flat direct route through the Alpine barrier.
In general, it is noteworthy that even if modern industry – tourism, the railway and later the highway system – represented opportunities for the Alps, complementing its traditional openness to new challenges, it also produced negative consequences, such as the human impact on the environment.
Political history
Like other parts of Europe, the Alpine region was affected by the formation of the nation states that produced tensions between various groups and had consequences for border areas. In these regions, the coercive power of the state was felt much more strongly that it had been before. Borders lost their permeability and now bisected areas formerly characterised by a shared sense of community and ongoing exchanges. During World War I the eastern Alpine region was one of the epicentres of the conflict.
After World War II, the Alps entered a new phase. At one and the same time, regional identities were reinforced and a common Alpine identity was constructed. A remarkable step was made in 1991 with the signing of the Alpine Convention between all Alpine countries and the European Union. This process was strengthened by the appearance of a new set of cultural values for the Alps. In the nineteenth century, there had been a tension between the romantic advocates of the "sacredness" of the Alpine peaks (such as John Ruskin), and modern mountain climbers (such as Leslie Stephen), who promoted the notion of the Alps as the "playground of Europe". In the twentieth century, the mountains acquired a clearly positive, iconic, status as places unsullied by undesirable urban influences such as pollution, noise and so on.
Tourism and alpinism
The fascination that the Alps exerted on the British has to be related to the general increase in charm and appeal of this mountain range during the eighteenth century. Yet British particularities were involved as well. Traditionally, many Englishmen felt the attraction of the Mediterranean, which was associated with the practice of the Grand Tour, and thus had to cross Europe and the Alps to reach it. From a place of transit, the Alps turned into a tourist destination as the flow of people and means of transport increased. Moreover, with the invention of new sports the Alps became an area of experimental training. The Alps offered many mountain climbers a degree of difficulty that fit their expectations.
The convergence of these phenomena granted to Alpine tourism a central position. It intensified from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards and, in spite of fluctuations, would never lose its importance. Railway companies, travel guides, travelogues and travel agents joined forces to make the Alps a prestigious tourist destination. With Thomas Cook in particular, the Alps appeared, as early as 1861, in the catalog of tourist offers and were instrumental in the establishment of a "truly international industry" of tourism. This industry developed the infrastructure: railway lines, hotels and other services such as casinos, promenades, improvements, and funiculars.
The conquest of the Alps by British tourists was achieved along with their domestication and with the passionate participation of local, regional and national élites, be they political, economic or cultural. Leslie Stephen, in a best-selling book first published in 1871, defined the Alps as "the Playground of Europe". The book highlights the incredible success of the mountains but it also reflects the tensions that emerged among their visitors. There was a clash between the "real enthusiasts", sensitive to beauty, and the "flock of ordinary tourists" sticking to their customs and comforts.
During the twentieth century, then, the Alps were involved in the globalisation of tourism, a process that caused the multiplication of its destinations. However, in the British population these mountains retained an undeniable attraction. In fact, the British continued to view winter sports in particular (such as skiing, skating, bobsleigh, curling) as significant grounds for justifying their travel and their perpetuation of a unique culture. The personalities of Gavin de Beer and Arnold Lunn represent this attitude through a prolific interpretation of this mountain range from every possible perspective. Indeed, the British have never ceased to love and be attracted to the Alps. This is not likely to end soon, if the advertisements and presentations of the major Alpine resorts that intersperse the Sunday editions of the major newspapers are any indicator.
Linguistic history
Further information: Linguistic geography of Switzerland
The Alps are at the crossroads of the French, Italian, German and South Slavic linguistic sprachraums. They also act as a linguistic refugium, preserving archaic dialects such as Romansh, Walser German or Romance Lombardic. Extinct languages known to have been spoken in the Alpine region include Rhaetic, Lepontic, Ligurian and Langobardic.
As a result of the complicated history of the Alpine region, the native language and the national feelings of the inhabitants do not always correspond to the current international borders. The Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol region, which was annexed by Italy after World War I, has a German-speaking majority in the northern province of South Tyrol. There are Walser German speakers to found in northern Italy near the Swiss border. There are some French and Franco-Provencal-speaking districts in the Italian Aosta Valley, while there are clusters of Slovene-speakers in the Italian portion of the Julian Alps, in the Resia Valley (where the archaic Resian dialect of Slovene is still spoken) and in the mountain district known as Venetian Slovenia.