Aosta historical timeline

Aosta was founded as a garrison town and has spent two thousand years being the gate to two passes.

The Salassi

The valley belonged to the Salassi, a Celtic people who controlled the passes and the gold workings and resisted Rome for well over a century. In 25 BC Terentius Varro Murena defeated them; ancient sources record on the order of thirty-six thousand people sold into slavery. The colony was planted immediately afterwards on cleared ground.

Augusta Praetoria

Three thousand praetorian veterans were settled in a walled rectangle of about 724 by 572 metres, on a grid. That rectangle is still the centre of Aosta, and the walls still stand for most of their circuit.

Savoy

From the eleventh century the valley belonged to the House of Savoy, but on unusual terms: it kept its own assembly, the Conseil des Commis, and a considerable degree of self-government until the French Revolution.

Anselm

Anselm of Canterbury, the philosopher and archbishop, was born here in 1033 and left as a young man for Normandy and eventually England.

French, then Italian, then French again

French was the administrative language from 1561. Fascism banned it, Italianised the place names and pushed industry and migration into the valley; the 1948 special statute restored co-official status.

Tunnels

The Great St Bernard tunnel opened in 1964 and the Mont Blanc tunnel in 1965, turning a valley that closed in winter into a year-round route between Italy, France and Switzerland. The Mont Blanc fire of March 1999 killed thirty-nine people and closed it for three years.

Autonomy

The region has been autonomous since 1948 and keeps almost all the tax raised in it, which is why the public infrastructure here is conspicuously good.