Valtellina

Valtellina or the Valtelline (occasionally spelled as two words in English: Val Telline; Romansh: Vuclina (listen^ⓘ); Lombard: Valtelina or Valtulina; German: Veltlin; Italian: Valtellina) is a valley in the Lombardy region of northern Italy, bordering Switzerland. Today it is known for its ski centre, hot spring spas, bresaola, cheeses (in particular Bitto, named after the river Bitto) and wines. It was a key Alpine pass between northern Italy and Germany. The control of the Valtellina was much sought after, particularly during the Thirty Years' War as it was an important part of the Spanish Road.

The most important comune of the valley is Sondrio; the others major centres are Aprica, Morbegno, Tirano, Bormio and Livigno. Although Livigno is on the northern side of the alpine watershed, it is considered part of Valtellina as it falls within the province of Sondrio.

The region was conquered in 16 BC by the Romans. By the 5th century, it was Christianized with around ten pieve (rural churches with a baptistery) under the Diocese of Como. The Lombards gained control over the area after 720, but about fifty years later Charlemagne gave the valley to Saint Denis Monastery near Paris. Later the valley returned to the Bishop of Como.

During the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, the Valtellina belonged to the Three Leagues (the "Grey Leagues"), which was then a mutual-defence region independent of Switzerland but is now the easternmost Swiss Canton of Graubünden. Graubünden is an area in which German, Romansh, Lombard and Italian are all spoken, and hence during 16th-century rule by Graubünden, the region became known variously as Veltlin, Westtirol (West Tyrol), and the Welsche Vogteien ("Romanic Bailiwicks").

During the Thirty Years' War, the Valtellina was a theatre of intense military and diplomatic struggle among France, the Habsburg powers and the local authorities which culminated in the Valtellina war of 1620–1626. Control over the routes through the Valtellina to the passes between Lombardy and the Danube watershed was at stake as it formed part of the so-called Spanish Road. The anti-Habsburg forces in the Three Leagues put together a court named 'clerical overseers' that between 1618 and 1620 handed down a number of convictions (often in absentia) against Catholics in the Leagues and Valtellina. This included the arresting under false pretences and torturing to death of the (catholic) arch-priest Nicolò Rusca of Sondrio. This and similar harsh judgments of the anti-Habsburg Thusis court led to a conspiracy to drive the Protestants out of the valley. The leader of the conspiracy, Giacomo Robustelli of the Planta family, had ties to Madrid, Rome and Paris. On the evening of 18/19 July 1620, a force of Valtellina rebels supported by Austrian and Italian troops marched into Tirano and began killing Protestants. When they finished in Tirano, they marched to Teglio, Sondrio and further down the valley killing every Protestant that they found. Between 500 and 600 people were killed on that night and in the following four days. The attack drove nearly all the Protestants out of the valley, prevented further Protestant incursions and took the Valtellina out of the Three Leagues. The killings in Valtellina were part of the conflicts in Graubünden known as the Bündner Wirren or Confusion of the Leagues.

In February 1623 France, Savoy, and Venice signed the Treaty of Paris in which all three signatories agreed to re-establish the territory of Valtellina by attempting to remove Spanish forces stationed there.

In 1797 the growing power of the First French Republic created the Cisalpine Republic in Northern Italy. On 10 October 1797, the French supported a revolt in the Valtellina against the Graubünden (Grisons in French and English), and it joined the Cisalpine Republic.

After the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Valtellina became part of the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia, which was a constituent land of the Austrian Empire. In 1859 it came, together with Lombardy, to the Kingdom of Sardinia, and finally in 1861 it became part of the Kingdom of Italy.