Some cities have origin stories, myths about their founding based on stories, apocryphal or otherwise. Think Romulus and Remus, Peter the Great’s window to the west, or the eagle eating a snake on a cactus that foretold the location of Mexico City.
Other cities have more humble beginnings. They’ve grown naturally because of favourable geographic conditions: rivers, harbours or shelters. What would become New York was settled first by native Americans and then by white settlers on the plentiful Hudson Bay; Istanbul straddles the strategic Bosporus passage between the Black and Mediterranean seas and was a crucial node on the silk road.
Bolzano is one of the latter, and its history begins thousands of years ago with the forming of the Alps during the last great ice age. The ice carved great valleys through the mountain range and when it began to retreat, hunter-gatherers moved into the newly accessible regions. With the agricultural revolution, they began farming animals and grain, fruits and vegetables, eventually settling in and around what is now Bolzano.
Our best window into this world comes in the form of Ötzi, an ice mummy who lived in the Copper Age, around 5,100 years ago, and who was found by two unassuming hikers in 1991, close to the Italian border with Austria. Because of the nature of his preservation, Ötzi survived where other bodies would have perished, and his possessions were frozen along with him. The skin, wood and plant material didn’t decompose, but was preserved perfectly in the glacial ice. Ötzi points us towards a complex Alpine society around 3,100 BC. His trousers were made of the skin of domesticated goats; he was found with a few grains in his possession, and evidence of bread (as well as ibex bacon) in his stomach. The complexity of his shoes have led some scientists to believe there were cobblers in his society — people with specific roles. Evidence of copper smelting is also clear, as is evidence of trade as far away as Tuscany, but also with lands to the north on the other side of the main Alpine ridge. People were moving around this hostile landscape a long, long time ago.
Tribes moved around, settled for a time, moved on and others moved in. Over the centuries, permanent populations established themselves in the valleys and, more often, on the mountainsides; the Adige/Etsch and Isarco/Eisack valleys were notoriously susceptible to floods before they were drained. Once settled after the ice age, the regional climate emerged as an extraordinarily favourable one, and farming was a relatively easy and lucrative business. So people stayed.
Since the Roman period, a road has run through the Alps. Named the Via Claudia Augusta, it follows a north-south route from Verona, through Trento and Bolzano and further on to Innsbruck and Augsburg. Travellers coming up from the south along the wide, flat Adige/Etsch valley from Verona would face a choice when they reached today’s Bolzano: turn right and head up the Ritten mountain and along the Isarco/Eisack valley to the Brenner Pass, today’s Italian-Austrian border; or take a left and stay in the favourable Adige/Etsch valley until Meran, and only then have to start climbing the mountains, and indeed much higher than the Brenner route. The latter route would lead them to western Austria and Switzerland; the former more directly to Innsbruck and Germany. Whichever route they took, and whichever direction they came from, Bolzano became a logical place for a rest stop — either just before or just after crossing the high Alps.
The first likely name of the town or settlement that would become Bolzano comes from the early first millennium, when Roman commander Drusus was sent north to establish the Via Claudia Augusta and bring the Raeti tribes — related to the Etruscans — as well as the Celtic groups further to the north under the Roman thumb. Pons Drusi — Drusus’ Bridge — appears on a document from this time and likely refers to a bridge crossing the Isarco/Eisack river in the valley basin by Bolzano.
In the 6th and 7th centuries of the first millennium, Bavarian tribes — Baiuvarii — came down from the north and established themselves in modern-day South Tyrol. The first mention of a Bavarian ruler around Bolzano comes from 679 AD, and the town or castle was named Bauzanum. It is from this word that the city takes its name.
The town proper was founded in around 1170-75 AD by decree from the Prince-Bishop of Trento who administered the region. He gave the town market rights and buildings were built along the already well-trodden north-south trading route. These buildings form the modern-day Laubengasse/Via dei portici and were a lucrative money-maker for both the Prince-Bishop and his subjects, the merchants and craftspeople, innkeepers and administrators of the new town of Botzen.
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