) in Trento was the seat of the prince-bishops from the 13th century to 1803. , in the northeast, is the highest mountain in the
Dolomites. ascent to Campolongo Pass, with Corvara in the background The Romans conquered the region in 15 BC. After the end of the
Western Roman Empire, it was divided between the
invading Germanic tribes in the
Lombard Duchy of Tridentum (today's
Trentino), the
Alamannic
Vinschgau, and the
Bavarians (who took the remaining part). After the creation of the
Kingdom of Italy under
Charlemagne, the
Marquisate of Verona included the areas south of
Bolzano, while the
Duchy of Bavaria received the remaining part. From the 11th century onwards, part of the region was governed by the
prince-bishops of
Trent and
Brixen, to whom the
Holy Roman Emperors had given extensive temporal powers over their bishoprics. Soon, they were overruled by the
Counts of Tyrol and
Counts of Görz, who also controlled the
Puster Valley: in 1363 its last titular countess,
Margarete of Tyrol, ceded the region to the
House of Habsburg. The regions north of
Salorno were largely
Germanized in the early
Middle Ages, and important
German poets like
Arbeo of Freising and
Oswald von Wolkenstein were born and lived in the southern part of
Tyrol. The two bishoprics were secularized (
mediatized) to the Habsburgs by the in 1803 and incorporated into Tyrol. Two years later, following the Austrian
defeat at Austerlitz, the region was given to Napoleon's ally
Bavaria (
Treaty of Pressburg, 1805). Under Bavarian rule the county was abolished and most of the modern region became part of the and ('
circles'), with a small part within the . The new rulers provoked a popular rebellion in 1809, led by
Andreas Hofer, a landlord from
St. Leonhard in Passeier; this rebellion was crushed the same year. At the resulting Treaty of Paris (28 February 1810), Bavaria ceded the southern part of Tyrol (Trentino and the city of Bolzano) to the Napoleonic
Kingdom of Italy. Under French control this mostly became the department (Italian: ""; German: ""), literally "High
Adige", in order to avoid any reference to the former County of Tyrol. After Napoleon's defeat in 1815, the region returned to Austria. Under Austrian rule the territory of today's province of South Tyrol was called or , but was occasionally also referred to as , i.e. Middle Tyrol, due to its geographic position, while
Südtirol (), i.e. South Tyrol, indicated mostly today's province of Trentino. Trentino was also called ("
Romance Tyrol", ) or ("Romance South Tyrol", ). Sometimes also indicated the whole of the Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol region. During the First World War, major battles were fought high in the Alps and Dolomites between Austro-Hungarian
Kaiserjäger and Italian
Alpini, for whom control of the region was a key strategic objective. The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian war effort enabled Italian troops to occupy the region in 1918 and its annexation was confirmed in the post-war treaties, which awarded the region to Italy under the terms of the
Treaty of Saint-Germain. , capital of South Tyrol in South Tyrol Under the dictatorship of
Benito Mussolini, the Fascist dictator of Italy (ruled 1922–1943), the German population was subjected to an increased forced programme of
Italianization: all references to old Tyrol were banned and the region was referred to as
Venezia Tridentina between 1919 and 1947, in an attempt to justify the Italian claims to the area by historically linking the region to one of the
Roman Regions of Italy (Regio X
Venetia et Histria).
Hitler and Mussolini agreed in 1938 that the German-speaking population would be transferred to German-ruled territory or dispersed around Italy, but the outbreak of the Second World War prevented them from fully carrying out the relocation. Nevertheless, thousands of people were relocated to
Nazi Germany and only with great difficulties managed to return to their ancestral land after the end of the war. In 1943, when the Italian government signed an
armistice with the Allies, the region was occupied by Germany, which reorganised it as the
Operation Zone of the Alpine Foothills and put it under the administration of
Gauleiter Franz Hofer. The region was
de facto annexed to the
German Reich (with the addition of the
province of Belluno) until the end of the war. This status ended along with the
Nazi regime and Italian rule was restored in 1945. Italy and Austria negotiated the
Gruber-De Gasperi Agreement in 1946, put into effect in 1947 when the new republican
Italian constitution was promulgated, that the region would be granted considerable autonomy. This region was to be a combination of the two provinces (majority-Italian Trentino and the majority-German province, to be called Alto Adige rather than South Tyrol). In the region, German and Italian were both made official languages, and German-language education was permitted once more. However, the implementation of the agreement was not seen as satisfactory by either the German-speaking population nor the Austrian government. The issue became the cause of significant friction between the two countries and was taken up by the United Nations in 1960. A fresh round of negotiations took place in 1961 but proved unsuccessful, partly because of popular discontent and a campaign of terrorism and bombings by German-speaking autonomists and separatists led by the
South Tyrolean Liberation Committee. The issue began to be resolved in 1971, when a new Austro-Italian treaty was signed and ratified. It stipulated that disputes in South Tyrol would be submitted for settlement to the
International Court of Justice in
The Hague; that while staying in the two-province region, South Tyrol would receive greater autonomy within Italy (and apart from Trentino); and that Austria would not interfere in South Tyrol's internal affairs. The new agreement proved broadly satisfactory to the parties involved and the separatist tensions eased. Thus the official name of the province had transitioned from 1927/Fascist-era "Bozen," after the capital (Bolzano in Italian), to 1947/Post-WW2 "Alto Adige/Tiroler Etschland," after the river valley, to "Autonomous Province Bozen – South Tyrol" in 1972. Technically the dispute between Italy and Austria was not solved until much later, with the UN declaring the dispute over only in 1992. Matters were helped further by Austria's accession to the
European Union in 1995, which has helped to improve cross-border cooperation. Other, less official, votes have been proposed since then, including a 2013 "vote" of the public by the political party, South Tyrol Freedom, asking if voters support "exercising the right of self-determination in order to freely decide the future of South Tyrol," without specifying if that meant reunification with Austria or striking out as an independent nation. With about 15 percent of the electorate responding, the result was about 92 percent in favor of leaving Italy (which its constitution forbids). In 2016, Italy did hold a referendum on constitutional changes in general, but the changes would have led to more centralization, not less, so separatists urged a "no" vote. At the same time, South Tyrol's moderates, who were in power, encouraged support, since "safeguards" allowing for future devolution also would have been part of the changes. In the end the national referendum failed, but not because of South Tyrol, which voted 64 percent in favor. == Geography ==