Bozen#

Bozen (Bolzano, South Tyrol, Italy), city, alt. 262 m, pop. 104,000; 24,875 speak German as their mother tongue, 64,109 Italian, 737 Ladin (1994). Capital of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano, economic, administrative and cultural centre. Bozen and the South Tyrol fell to Italy in 1919/1920 (pop. 1910: 24,362). In 1910, Bozen had its own statute with district courts, a Chamber of Labour and Commerce, a branch of the Austrian-Hungarian bank, a building for exhibitions of regional art and industry, a museum, an upper-section secondary school run by the Franciscan order, a commercial secondary school, a teacher training college, a college for wood processing, and the Rainerum and Elisabethinum boarding schools.

Roman settlement, first documented mention in 680 A.D. ("Bauzanum"), medieval city centre (arcades, fruit market); symbol of the city is the tower (1500-1519) of the Gothic parish church (Romanesque-Gothic frescoes); Dominican church with late Gothic frescoes and cloister; Franciscan church and library; monument to Walther von der Vogelweide; noble residences (Menz, Pock). In the suburb of Gries, parish church (1414-1540) with carved Gothic altar by M. Pacher; Benedictine monastery. Castles near Bozen: Sigmundskron, Gerstburg, Hoertenberg, Haselburg, Klebenstein, Maretsch, Rendelstein, Runkelstein, Ried, Greifenstein and Treuenstein.

Literature#