About Trentino Alto Adige: Trentino-Alto Adige is one of the five autonomous regions in Italy. It is located in the north-east of the country and consists of two provinces: Trento and Bolzano-Bozen. The region is bordered by Austria to the north, by Switzerland to the north-west and by the Italian regions of Lombardy and Veneto to the west and south. It covers 13,607 square kilometres. It is extremely mountainous, covering a large part of the Dolomites and the southern Alps.
Trentino-Alto Adige has a reputation as one of the best holiday locations in Italy. It offers the visitor popular ski resorts and immaculate medieval towns, glorious nature, warm hospitality, reliable accommodation and extremely affordable prices. In winter, the skiing is second to none. Spring and Autumn provides hikers with an established network of well-marked trails, with stops in remote mountain hamlets where German is more widely spoken than Italian and Sauerkraut is more common than pasta. All year round, the area offers breathtaking scenery with saw-toothed ridges, snow-capped peaks, lush alpine meadows and glittering waterfalls.
Despite outward appearances, this is a deeply divided region, an area which has long struggled to find its own identity. Napoleon conquered the region and placed it under the realm of the Austrian Habsburgs, who ruled it until it was returned to Italy in 1919. A large proportion of the population never accepted that political arrangement, and in 1939, Mussolini they were given the opportunity to either accept Italian citizenship and remain, or assume German citizenship and emigrate north. The overwhelming majority chose the second option, which left the area extremely underpopulated.
In 1948, Trentino-Alto Adige was made an autonomous region. Unfortunately, this has increased divisions in the area. Trentino, the southern part of the region centered around the beautiful city of Trento, has become far more Italian than the northern part, Alto Adige, which is also known as Südtyrol. In addition, there are a large number of residents who belong to another ethnic group and who speak an ancient language known as Ladin. This utterly incomprehensible language, which combines Celtic dialects with Latin, resulted from the arrival of the Roman legions in the first century BC. The town of Vigo di Fassa has a fascinating museum dedicated to the history and traditions of the Ladin people.
| Languages spoken | Itlain and other local dialects |
| Currency | Euro |
| Area (km2) | 6,207 |
| Population | 534,405 |
Culture and history of Trento Alto Adige
According to a number of archeological findings around the city of Trento, in antiquity the region was inhabited since very ancient times, being the valley of the Adige river a transit center between central Europe and Italy. And as a matter of fact the region always was a meeting point of the German and the Latin cultures. About 40 BC the region was conquered by the Romans and included in the Undecima Regio of the Empire with capital Truentum.
History – the Middle Ages
After the fall of Rome in 476 AD it was first occupied by the Goths, then by the Lombards, and in the late 8th century by the Franks, who united it administratively with Friuli. Then in 935 AD Trentino was separated from Friuli and entrusted by the Emperor ro the Bishop of Trento. In the 12th and 13th century the rise of the Communes engendered factions and intestine wars, so that Emperor Federico II of Swabia established an absolute, ruthless control on the region.
History – the Modern Age
In the 16th century there took place a remarkable cultural and economic development, thanks to the enlightened rule of Bernardo Clesio and Cristoforo Madruzzo, and between 1545 and 1563 the region was the theater of the most important and famous Council of the Catholic Church, becoming the center of the conflict between Protestant and reform currents, that changed the face of the church completely.In the 16th and 17th century there was a decline, caused by the turmoil and wars in central Europe, to be finally included under Austria in 1777. During the Napoleonic wars Trentino was united to Tyrol and was for a time under Bayern, then with the Congress of Vienna was returned to Austria. Only after the First World War the region, at the time consisting of only one province, Trento, was finally united to Italy. Later on the Province of Bolzano was also established.