Aosta (Aoste in French; Aoûta in suprialectal Arpitan; Oûta, or Veulla in standard Valdostan patois, Ohta in the variant of the lower valley; Augschtal in Walser; Osta or Aosta in Piedmontese) is an Italian town of 33 964 inhabitants, capital of the autonomous region Valle d'Aosta.
Prehistory
Megalithic area of Saint-Martin-de-Corléans
Area of
archaeological studies located near the church of
Saint-Martin-de-Corléans, of great interest for the findings of an
ancient settlement on which the legend that unites it to the city of
Cordelia was born.
Roman times
Aosta is the second city after
Rome with the largest number of Roman remains still visible, it is no
coincidence that it is called "the Rome of the Alps".
Arch of
Augustus
Porta Prætoria and the Roman gates of Aosta
Roman Theater
of Aosta
Roman amphitheater of Aosta
Walls and towers
Forensic
cryptoporticus
Roman bridge over the Buthier
Roman villa of the
Consolata
Funerary area outside Porta Decumana in Aosta
Medieval era
Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta and San Giovanni
Battista
Remains of a twin church recently discovered on the right
side of the cathedral. Human bones and foundations have been brought to
light (the only representation of this church is in an ancient painting
in the regional palace)
Collegiate Church of Sant'Orso
Grand Arvou
aqueduct bridge, in the Porossan locality
Modern era
Church of
the Holy Cross
Church of Saint Etienne
Calvin cross
Contemporary era
Émile Chanoux square
Jocteau Castle or Duca degli
Abruzzi Castle
Casa Littoria - building located in Piazza della
Repubblica, built in 1939 by the architect Giuseppe Momo. Originally the
headquarters of the National Fascist Party, it is one of the tallest
buildings in the city. After the war it was the seat of the abandoned
Cinema Lux while it currently houses the Department of Industry.
Justice palace
Natural areas
Tzatelet nature reserve
Entrebin Arboretum
Saumont Park
Regional Library of Aosta;
«Ida Désandré» library in viale Europa;
Regional hospital library;
Dora Quarter Library;
Library of the
Historical Institute of the Resistance and Contemporary Society, in via
Piave;
Library of the Italian Alpine Club, in Émile Chanoux square;
Diocesan library, in Xavier de Maistre street.
There are 5 basic educational institutions in the municipality, while
the upper secondary ones include:
the "Regina Maria Adelaide"
teaching institute, including the high schools of human sciences and
applied sciences;
the "Édouard Bérard" educational institution,
comprising a scientific high school (courses: physics/natural sciences)
and a linguistic high school;
the scholastic institution including
the "XXVI February" classical high school, the artistic high school and
the musical high school;
the ISIT "Innocent Manzetti" (Technical
education institution), including 3 different courses, IT,
administration, finance and marketing, construction, environment and
territory;
ISITP "Corrado Gex" (School institution of technical and
professional education), including numerous addresses.
the Institut
Agricole Régional (equal school).
University.
Regional Archaeological Museum of Valle d'Aosta (MAR)
Cathedral
Treasury Museum
Treasure Museum of the Collegiate Church of Sant'Orso
30-31 January: Sant'Orso Fair - Foire de Saint Ours;
Bataille de
reines, the final battle (Combat final) takes place every year in the
Croix-Noire arena, generally on the penultimate Sunday of October;
The Fête de la Vallée d'Aoste took place on the feast day of San Grato,
patron saint of the region (7 September). On this occasion, the
Chevalier de l'autonomie and Amis de la Vallée d'Aoste awards were
presented. Established by Regional Law within the framework of the
provisions to enhance autonomy, it was suppressed and aggregated to the
celebrations of February 26 for the Statute of autonomy.
By plane
Turin airport
Geneva Airport
By car
From
Turin: A5 motorway for Valle d'Aosta with the Aosta Est exit.
From
Milan: A4 motorway towards Turin; take the Santhià junction in the
direction of Aosta with the Aosta Est exit.
From France (Chamonix -
Vallée blanche - Geneva): go through the Mont Blanc tunnel and continue
along the A5 motorway (Aosta Ovest - Saint-Pierre exit) or the national
road 26, or (from Albertville - Moûtiers) cross the pass Piccolo San
Bernardo and continue along state road 26 towards Aosta.
From
Switzerland (Martigny) - go through the tunnel or the Gran San Bernardo
pass and continue on state road 27 up to Aosta.
On the train
Aosta station: Chivasso-Ivrea-Aosta railway line.
The rather small center can be easily managed on foot.
Modest prices
McDonald's Aosta, Corso Ivrea 138, ☎ +39 0165
231236. Mon-Sun: 07:00-00:00 Restaurant and McCafé, Sun-Thu:
07:00-00:00; Fri-Sat: 07:00-02:00 McDrive. The services are: McDrive,
McCafè, Parking, Breakfast, Wifi, Playland. This is the only McDonald's
in the Aosta Valley.
The legend of the year 1158 BC
A legend narrates that in the year
1158 B.C. the city of Cordelia was founded by Cordelo, progenitor of the
Salassi, descendant of Saturn and expedition companion of Hercules.
The pre-Roman era
A population of megalithic culture was already
present in the city in protohistoric times, as evidenced by the
important discovery of a necropolis with megalithic tombs and a cult
area dating back to the 3rd millennium, preserved in the megalithic area
of Saint-Martin- de-Corléans. Later there was the settlement of the
Celtic tribe of Salassi.
At the end of the Second Punic War, after Scipio Africanus' victory
over Hannibal in 202 BC, Rome turned its attention to the Alps, where
the Gauls allied with the Carthaginians continued to pose a significant
threat. The function of a camp placed in this valley was mainly
strategic. It was essential to consolidate Rome's dominion over the Po
Valley and the pre-Alpine territories, using the Alps as a natural
bulwark against barbarian invasions. For this reason a system of
fortified cities was born at the mouth of the Alpine valleys which
controlled the accesses to the fertile lands of the Po Valley.
However from the 1st century BC. the progressive conquest of Gaul
changed the strategic importance of the Piccolo and Gran San Bernardo
passes, posing the problem of controlling the valley inhabited at that
time by a population, the Salassi, an obstacle to the passage of
soldiers and merchants along the Via delle Gallie . After a series of
skirmishes and military expeditions and treaties with an uncertain
outcome, in 25 B.C. Caesar Augustus sent the future consul Aulus
Terentius Varrone Murena at the head of a substantial army against the
Salassi. In the end, defeated, the Salassi were probably exterminated or
enslaved.
From Aosta, in Roman times, passed the Via delle
Gallie, a Roman consular road built by Augustus to connect the Po Valley
with Gaul.
The foundation of Augusta Prætoria Salassorum
Fortified city, built in a short time on the model of the Roman military
camp, Augusta Prætoria Salassorum was born at the crossroads of the via
del Grande (Mons Iovis or Summus Poeninus) and via Piccolo San Bernardo
(Columna Iovis or Alpis Graia) at the confluence of the rivers Dora
Baltea and Buthier. An imposing wall protected a territory of 414,128
m², while four gates gave access to the city built on the
cardo-decumanic orthogonal model. The central street Decumanus Maximus
(the current Via Porta Prætoria, Via Jean-Baptiste de Tillier and Via
Édouard Aubert), then nine meters wide, was the natural continuation of
the Via Consulare delle Gallie which from Milan reached the Piccolo San
Bernardo. However, access to the city was ensured by a bridge over the
Buthier, of which only an arch is visible today not far from the bed of
the stream, which was diverted due to a flood. Inside the walls stood
the residential districts, the theatre, the baths, the forum and the
amphitheater, while to the south lay the popular districts divided
according to a classic chessboard pattern.
Still very controversial is the problem of populating the city before and after the Roman conquest. An uncertain document mentions 3,000 Praetorians, and coexistence with the native Salassi, in contrast with the presence of an amphitheater designed for a city of thirty to forty thousand inhabitants. An inscription dating back to 23 BC. it would seem to deny the statements of ancient historians including Strabone, regarding the mass deportations of the Salassi and their sale as slaves in Augusta Eporedia. Furthermore, the juridical language at the time of the Romans incolae indicated the inhabitants of a colony possessing inferior rights to that of the cives. These clues suggest that the bloodletting population integrated with the new conquerors, just as they suggest numerous funerary inscriptions in which bloodletting names appear associated with other Romans, whose children born of mixed marriages always bore Latin names. In Roman times it had great strategic and military importance thanks to the control it exercised over the two passes of the Piccolo and Gran San Bernardo. Augusta Prætoria began, as early as the 1st century, to have unequivocally urban and monumental connotations, imposing itself as one of the richest and most populous inhabited centers in Northern Italy.
After the centuries-old dominion of the empire and its
Christianization, the city, thanks to the Alps and the walls, managed to
suffer few invasions. According to a legend, Augusta Prætoria was
destroyed by the Saracens and the Barbarians; in reality the Roman city
suffered the greatest damage from the late medieval reconstruction which
used blocks of stone from Roman buildings for the building of towers and
churches.
The city became a bishopric towards the end of the
fourth century, belonging first to the vast diocese of Vercelli, then to
the metropolitan church of Milan until the eighth century. After
Odoacer's death, Aosta became part of Theoderic's Ostrogothic Kingdom.
With the end of the Gothic War, Aosta became part of the Praetorian
Prefecture of Italy until it was conquered by Alboino's troops, who
annexed it to the Lombard Kingdom. Taking advantage of the period of
anarchy following the death of Clefi, the Merovingian Gontrano, king of
the Franks of Orleans, defeated the Lombards, annexing Aosta and Susa in
575. The two cities always constituted a weak point in the defense of
the northern part of the Lombard kingdom , as a very important entry
point into Italy. Following the conquest of the Lombard kingdom by
Charlemagne in 774, Aosta and Susa followed the fate of the kingdom of
Italy. Under the Carolingian Empire, the Via Francigena developed, a
pilgrimage route from northern Europe to Rome, accomplished by crossing
the Gran San Bernardo hill. Saint-Rhémy-en-Bosses, Aosta, Pontey and
Pont-Saint-Martin are stages mentioned by Sigeric of Canterbury in 990.
By the will of Otto I of Saxony, who intended to guarantee himself
free access to the kingdom of Italy, in 972 Aosta was assigned to his
brother-in-law Conrad III of Burgundy and remained part of the kingdom
of Burgundy until 1032. As a consequence, political relations were
consolidated, economic and commercial trade towards the other side of
the Alps. In the long run, Franco-Provençal dialects spread and
developed in Val d'Aosta similar to those spoken in Savoy, in the
Dauphiné and in present-day Romandy Switzerland.
The birth of the
County of Savoy, with the capital Chambéry, led the city to follow its
fate until the unification of Italy.
Modern and contemporary era
Aosta has the particularity of being the only Italian regional capital
which is not at the same time a provincial capital, since the province
of Aosta was reduced to a district of the province of Turin with the
Rattazzi law and finally transformed into an autonomous region with the
republican constitution and the related implementing constitutional law
of 1948, which does not provide for provinces in the region.
The coat of arms and the banner were recognized by decree of the head
of government of 7 December 1939. The coat of arms of the municipality
describes itself as follows:
«Black, with a lion Argent, armed
and tongued Gules, with a head Gules, with a cross Argent. The shield is
surmounted by a ducal crown.
The banner consists of:
«drape
divided in black and red, with friezes and colored fringes loaded in the
center of the coat of arms described above with the inscription centered
in gold "city of aosta". The pinned drape.”
The banner has been
in use since 1932 and was recognized in 1939. Being the Fascist period,
the double Italian-French bilingual denomination was not foreseen at the
time. Therefore, although the banner remains officially monolingual in
Italian, the banner in use, also present in the ducal hall of the Hôtel
de ville, also bears the French version "ville d'aoste".
Aosta is located in a valley completely surrounded by mountains. This causes a continental climate more tending to the alpine one. In fact, winters often last a long time, with very low temperatures that can last until the beginning of May. Summers, on the other hand, are short, but still very hot. In the months of December and January, the minimum temperatures are almost always well below zero, the maximums usually just above zero. In the periods of anticyclone in the Azores, however, they suffer a sudden increase, reaching peaks of + 9 / + 10 ° C, especially in the presence of the foehn wind. In this period, between December and January, snowfalls are very frequent and also very intense. On perturbed days the bora wind blows, which causes temperatures to drop far below zero. In fact, the absolute coldest record in Aosta is -18 ° C (January 1956). In February, temperatures remain rather rigid, especially in the minimum values, which often still remain below zero, but in broad daylight, especially at the end of the month, they easily reach + 12 + 13 ° C. The monthly record for February dates back to 2017, when +19 ° C was reached on 27 February. On 24 February 2020 there were + 26 degrees thanks to very strong Föhn winds, and then 0 degrees on 26 February with a heavy snowfall. March and April are, on the other hand, very dynamic: sometimes it can even snow heavily, while other times there are already semi-summer periods, such as 17 March 2014, when Aosta and Bolzano reached +28 ° C. May is quite variable, given that in the first days of the month the mornings are often quite cold, with values that can sometimes be just above zero. However, the maximum daytime temperatures, especially in the presence of strong sun with an African anticyclone, quickly rise upwards, stagnating in the basin and reaching +25/26 ° C. In June and July, the peak of heat is reached, as well as the apex of precipitation and heat storms. June and July are the only months in which mild values are recorded in the morning, around 15 ° C, and very high maximum values, with peaks normally around 32-33 ° C, but which in the most violent heat waves can also reach i + 35-36 ° C. Aosta's absolute heat record belongs to June 27, 2019, when the capital reached 40 ° C. At the end of August, temperatures drop sharply and the last heat storms occur. In September, daytime maximums of +30 ° C are hardly reached, and already in the early morning the minimum values are often around 10 ° C if not below. In October, the climate cools down considerably, with the first values below zero in the middle of the month, and maximum diurnal values which, except for days of strong Föhn, struggle to exceed +20 ° C. On 24 October 2018 Aosta reached the anomalous temperature of +28 ° C. In November, the minimum values are often below zero, even abundantly, and snowfalls are very frequent and intense.
Streets
The city of Aosta is crossed from East to West by the SS
26 which runs through the entire central valley from Pont-Saint-Martin
to the Piccolo San Bernardo pass (with a variant from Pré-Saint-Didier
to Courmayeur). Overall, the State Road 26 is 156.344 km long.
Another state road, the second and last in the region, the SS 27
connects the Aosta Valley capital with the Swiss border at the Tunnel
(or with the Gran San Bernardo Pass). Overall, the State Road 27 is
33,910 km long. This road is part of the international itinerary E27
(the number of the national road and the European itinerary coincide,
but not intentionally) which leads from Belfort (France) to Aosta.
Aosta is also served by the A5 Turin-Courmayeur.
Railways
Rail
transport to and from Aosta is carried out by Trenitalia as part of the
service contract stipulated for the Valle d'Aosta Region. The city is
served by two single-track lines, one towards Pré-Saint-Didier
(currently not in use), and the other towards Chivasso and Torino Porta
Nuova.
The following facilities are present in the city:
the
Aosta station
the Aosta Institute stop
the Aosta Viale Europa stop
Ropeways
The Aosta-Pila cable car connects Aosta with the
locality of Pila, located in the territory of the Municipality of
Gressan, overcoming a difference in height of about 1200 metres.
Airports
Corrado Gex regional airport is located in the municipality
of Saint-Christophe. The runway was enlarged and the air terminal
redesigned by the architect Gae Aulenti with a cost of around 30 million
euros, the airport is currently unused due to a series of legal cases.
Closed to the transport of passengers and goods, it is mostly frequented
by small planes, gliders and helicopters.
Urban mobility
Urban
transport is managed by the SVAP company which serves the regional
capital and the municipalities of the plain (the plain of Aosta,
including Aosta itself, Charvensod, Quart, Saint-Christophe, Brissogne,
Sarre and Pollein).
The SAVDA company is also active in the area,
holder of a regional concession, which connects the city center with
Courmayeur, Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, Turin, Milan.
Hydroelectric energy is generated in the municipality of Aosta. The Signayes hydroelectric plant, managed by the CVA, exploits the waters of the Buthier stream and the discharge from the Valpelline hydroelectric plant.
In Aosta both fiolet and rebatta are played, characteristic
traditional Aosta Valley sports. In the municipal area there are three
sections of the Association Valdôtaine Fiolet: Aosta, Arpuilles-Excenex
and Porossan.
Soccer
The Aosta 1911 Unione Sportiva Aosta 1911
is located in the Aosta Valley capital, a football team that plays in
the third category but boasts of having played in both Serie C and D in
the past decades. Valle d'Aosta Calcio also had experiences in the
fourth professional division of Italian football, born in 1997 from the
merger of various local amateur clubs and dissolved in 2010. Unlike its
"cousin", it did not boast the same support for several reasons, such as
the fact that he had a team made up of rather young players with little
experience.
Cycling
Aosta has been the stage finish site of
the Giro d'Italia three times:
1970, 3rd stage Saint-Vincent-Aosta,
won by Franco Bitossi
1973, 4th stage Geneva-Aosta, won by Eddy
Merckx
1996, 15th stage Briançon-Aosta, won by Gianni Bugno
Aosta has twice been the stage finish site of the Tour de France:
1949, 17th stage, Briançon-Aosta, won by Fausto Coppi
1959, 18th
stage, Colle del Lautaret-Aosta, won by Ercole Baldini