History of Trentino
Encyclopedia
The history of Trentino begins in the mid-Stone Age
Stone Age
The Stone Age is a broad prehistoric period, lasting about 2.5 million years , during which humans and their predecessor species in the genus Homo, as well as the earlier partly contemporary genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus, widely used exclusively stone as their hard material in the...

 when the valleys of what is now Trentino were already inhabited by humans, the main settlements being in the valley of the Adige
Adige
The Adige is a river with its source in the Alpine province of South Tyrol near the Italian border with Austria and Switzerland. At in length, it is the second longest river in Italy, after the River Po with ....

 River, thanks for its milder climate. Research suggests that the first settlers (probably hunters) came from the Padana Plain
Po River
The Po |Ligurian]]: Bodincus or Bodencus) is a river that flows either or – considering the length of the Maira, a right bank tributary – eastward across northern Italy, from a spring seeping from a stony hillside at Pian del Re, a flat place at the head of the Val Po under the northwest face...

 and the Venetian
Veneto
Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule...

 Prealps, after the first glaciers started to melt at the end of the Pleistocene
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....

 glaciations.

Findings (in particular, burials) from the Mesolithic
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....

 period, have been found in several parts of the province. These include the comuni of Zambana
Zambana
Zambana is a comune in Trentino in the northern Italian region Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, located about 9 km north of Trento. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 1,654 and an area of 11.7 km²....

 and Mezzocorona
Mezzocorona
Mezzocorona , until 1902 Mezzotedesco is a comune in Trentino in the northern Italian region Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, located about 15 km north of the city of Trento....

. A large area of a hunting-based settlement from the Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...

 period has been found near the lakes of Colbricòn, not far from the Rolle Pass.

Ancient history

Around 500 BC, the Raeti
Raeti
The Raeti was the collective "ethnic" name used by the ancient Romans to denote a number of Alpine tribes, whose language and culture may have derived, at least in part, from the Etruscans. From not later than ca...

ans appeared in the Trentine area, coming from the Central and Eastern Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....

 area. They settled in several valleys and brought new skills on top of the traditional hunting: agriculture (grapes, vegetables, cereal
Cereal
Cereals are grasses cultivated for the edible components of their grain , composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran...

s), breeding (ovines, goats, bovines and horses). During the Roman Age, part of the current Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol region made up the province of Raetia
Raetia
Raetia was a province of the Roman Empire, named after the Rhaetian people. It was bounded on the west by the country of the Helvetii, on the east by Noricum, on the north by Vindelicia, on the west by Cisalpine Gaul and on south by Venetia et Histria...

.

This region was conquered by the Romans only in the 1st century BC. The definitive defeat of the Rhaetians, near Bolzano, occurred during the military campaigns in the Alps of Drusus
Nero Claudius Drusus
Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus , born Decimus Claudius Drusus also called Drusus, Drusus I, Nero Drusus, or Drusus the Elder was a Roman politician and military commander. He was a fully patrician Claudian on his father's side but his maternal grandmother was from a plebeian family...

 and Tiberius
Tiberius
Tiberius , was Roman Emperor from 14 AD to 37 AD. Tiberius was by birth a Claudian, son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla. His mother divorced Nero and married Augustus in 39 BC, making him a step-son of Octavian...

 (16-17 BC). Trento became a Roman municipium
Municipium
Municipium , the prototype of English municipality, was the Latin term for a town or city. Etymologically the municipium was a social contract between municipes, the "duty holders," or citizens of the town. The duties, or munera, were a communal obligation assumed by the municipes in exchange for...

in the 40s BC. During the reign of Emperor Claudius
Claudius
Claudius , was Roman Emperor from 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, he was the son of Drusus and Antonia Minor. He was born at Lugdunum in Gaul and was the first Roman Emperor to be born outside Italy...

 (41-54 AD) Trentino was integrated in the Imperial roadnet with the construction of the Via Claudia Augusta Padana (from Ostiglia
Ostiglia
Ostiglia is a comune in the Province of Mantua in the Italian region Lombardy, located about southeast of Milan and about southeast of Mantua....

 to the Resia
Resia
Resia is a comune in the Province of Udine in the Italian region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. It is located in the Alpine valley with the same name, about 90 km northwest of Trieste and about 35 km north of Udine, on the border with Slovenia and around 20 km from the border with Austria...

 Pass) and the Via Augusta Altinate (from Treviso
Treviso
Treviso is a city and comune in Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Treviso and the municipality has 82,854 inhabitants : some 3,000 live within the Venetian walls or in the historical and monumental center, some 80,000 live in the urban center proper, while the city...

 to Trento, passing through the Valsugana
Valsugana
The Sugana Valley is one of the most important valleys in the autonomous province of Trentino in Northern Italy. Leading into the Alps' foothills, an important main north-south Roman road, the Via Claudia Augusta, one of Europe's main roads since its construction in Antiquity, winds along the...

).

Bishopric of Trent


During the Late Antiquity, in the 5th century AD, Trentino was invaded several times, from North and East: first by the Ostrogoth
Ostrogoth
The Ostrogoths were a branch of the Goths , a Germanic tribe who developed a vast empire north of the Black Sea in the 3rd century AD and, in the late 5th century, under Theodoric the Great, established a Kingdom in Italy....

s, then by the Bavarians and Byzantines
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

 and finally by the Lombards
Lombards
The Lombards , also referred to as Longobards, were a Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin, who from 568 to 774 ruled a Kingdom in Italy...

. With the latter's domination an idea of territorial identity of the province began to shape (Tridentinum territorium). In the same century the region became largely Christianized. In 774 Trentino was conquered by the Franks
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...

 and became part of the Kingdom of Italy
Kingdom of Italy (medieval)
The Kingdom of Italy was a political entity under control of Carolingian dynasty of Francia first, after the defeat of the Lombards in 774. It was finally incorporated as a part of the Holy Roman Empire in 962....

, a sometimes vague entity included in what was to become the Holy Roman Empire
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...

.

The first territorial unity of Trentino dates back to 1027, when emperor Conrad II
Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor
Conrad II was Holy Roman Emperor from 1027 until his death.The son of a mid-level nobleman in Franconia, Count Henry of Speyer and Adelaide of Alsace, he inherited the titles of count of Speyer and of Worms as an infant when Henry died at age twenty...

 officially gave the rule of the area to the Bishopric of Trent
Bishopric of Trent
The Bishopric of Trent is a former ecclesiastical territory roughly corresponding to the present-day Northern Italian autonomous province of Trentino. It was created in 1027 and existed until 1802, when it was secularised and absorbed into the County of Tyrol held by the House of Habsburg...

. This entity survived for some eight centuries and granted Trentino a certain autonomy, first from the Holy Roman Empire and then from the Austrian Empire
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...

.

Part of Austria

In the early 19th century the Trentine people participated actively in the resistance, led by the Tyrolean Andreas Hofer
Andreas Hofer
Andreas Hofer was a Tirolean innkeeper and patriot. He was the leader of a rebellion against Napoleon's forces....

, against the French invasion
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...

. After the end of the Napoleonic era (1815), the Bishopric of Trent was dissolved and Trentino became part of the County of Tyrol
County of Tyrol
The County of Tyrol, Princely County from 1504, was a State of the Holy Roman Empire, from 1814 a province of the Austrian Empire and from 1867 a Cisleithanian crown land of Austria-Hungary...

, in which the majority of the population was German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 speaking. Though relatively well administered, and despite the presence of Trentine representatives in the Diets
Diet (assembly)
In politics, a diet is a formal deliberative assembly. The term is mainly used historically for the Imperial Diet, the general assembly of the Imperial Estates of the Holy Roman Empire, and for the legislative bodies of certain countries.-Etymology:...

 of Innsbruck
Innsbruck
- Main sights :- Buildings :*Golden Roof*Kaiserliche Hofburg *Hofkirche with the cenotaph of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor*Altes Landhaus...

 and Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, in the second half of the 19th century a movement (part of the general movement called Italian irredentism) arose with the aim of annexing the region to the Kingdom of Italy: this, however, was largely put forward by intellectuals like Cesare Battisti
Cesare Battisti
Cesare Battisti was an Italian politician who became a prominent Irrendentist at the start of the First World War.-Biography:...

 and Fabio Filzi, and met little support by the predominantly rural population.

Given the area's strategic importance in the event of a war between Austria-Hungary and Italy, the Austro-Hungarians strengthened their troop levels there and fortified the area in the early twentieth century. Under the authority of the Austro-Hungarian chief of staff Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, modern, armored fortifications were built in the areas around Lavarone
Lavarone
Lavarone is a comune in Trentino in the northern Italian region Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, located about 20 km southeast of Trento...

 and Folgaria
Folgaria
Folgaria is a comune in Trentino in the northern Italian region Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, located about 15 km southeast of Trento...

; their dual purpose was to protect against an Italian attack and to secure the area as a staging ground for an Austrian assault on Northern Italy
Northern Italy
Northern Italy is a wide cultural, historical and geographical definition, without any administrative usage, used to indicate the northern part of the Italian state, also referred as Settentrione or Alta Italia...

.

After Italy entered the First World War in 1915, the Trentine territory was a main fronts between Italy and Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...

, and suffered heavy destruction. After the call to arms summoned by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria
Franz Joseph I of Austria
Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I was Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia, King of Croatia, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Galicia and Lodomeria and Grand Duke of Cracow from 1848 until his death in 1916.In the December of 1848, Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria abdicated the throne as part of...

 on July 31, 1914, more than 60,000 Trentine fought for Austria, first against Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 and Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

 and, starting from 1915, also against Italians. More than 10,000 of them died, and many others were wounded or made prisoners. Further, hundreds of thousands of civilians were forced to abandon their native area when they were too near to the front lines. Many of them, captured by the Italian Army, were later transferred to Southern Italy as colonists.

Annexation to Italy

With the Treaty of Saint-Germain
Treaty of Saint-Germain
The Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, was signed on 10 September 1919 by the victorious Allies of World War I on the one hand and by the new Republic of Austria on the other...

 (1919), Trentino was annexed to Italy, together with the new Province of Bolzano/Bozen (South Tyrol), as part of Venezia Tridentina. The centralization process brought on by the Fascists
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...

 reduced the autonomy that cities like Trento or Rovereto
Rovereto
Rovereto is a city and comune in Trentino in northern Italy, located in the Vallagarina valley of the Adige River.-History:Rovereto was an ancient fortress town standing at the frontier between the bishopric of Trento - an independent state until 1797 - and the republic of Venice, and later...

 had enjoyed under the preceding Liberal governments, while many of the smaller comuni were united, reducing their number from the 366 under the Habsburg to 127.

Autonomy

After World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, the treaty signed by the Italian and Austrian Ministers of Foreign affairs, Alcide De Gasperi
Alcide De Gasperi
Alcide De Gasperi was an Italian statesman and politician and founder of the Christian Democratic Party. From 1945 to 1953 he was the prime minister of eight successive coalition governments. His eight-year rule remains a landmark of political longevity for a leader in modern Italian politics...

 and Karl Gruber
Karl Gruber
Karl Gruber was an Austrian politician and diplomat. During World War II, he was working for a German firm in Berlin. After the war, in 1945 he became Landeshauptmann of Tyrol for a short time...

, the autonomous Region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol was created (see Gruber-De Gasperi Agreement
Gruber-De Gasperi Agreement
The Gruber-De Gasperi Agreement, named after the foreign ministers of Austria and Italy , of September 1946, allowed Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol to remain part of Italy, but ensured its autonomy....

).

In the following decades the main party in Trentino was the Christian Democracy
Christian Democracy (Italy)
Christian Democracy was a Christian democratic party in Italy. It was founded in 1943 as the ideological successor of the historical Italian People's Party, which had the same symbol, a crossed shield ....

, while autonomistic instances found their voice in the Partito Popolare Trentino Tirolese (Trentine-Tyrolese Popular Party). In 1957 strife between Trentino and the largely German-speaking South Tyrol led to the popularity of the slogan Los von Trient ("Away from Trento"). In 1972 the regional administration was handed over to the two provinces.

In the 1960s and 1970s Trentino witnessed strong economic development, spurred mainly by the tourism sector and by the new autonomy. It is currently one of the richest and best developed Italian provinces.

In 1996, the Euroregion Tyrol-South Tyrol-Trentino
Euroregion Tyrol-South Tyrol-Trentino
[Image:Tirol-Suedtirol-Trentino.png|thumb|Detailed map of the Euroregion, formed by the Austrian state of Tyrol and the Italian autonomous provinces of South Tyrol and Trentino.----...

 was formed between the Austrian state of Tyrol and the Italian provinces of South Tyrol and Trentino. The boundaries of the association correspond to the old County of Tyrol. The aim is to promote regional peace, understanding and cooperation in many areas. The region's assemblies meet together as one on various occasions and have set up a common liaison office to the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

in Brussels.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK