Walk to Canossa
The area of Sappada was initially part of the historic Cadore region, which Emperor Otto II ceded to the Bavarian Bishops of Freising in 973. The bishops already held nearby Innichen Abbey in the Puster Valley. At the time, German-speaking settlers, mainly from the Villgraten valley (in present-day East Tyrol), entered the region. King Henry IV, after his Walk to Canossa in January 1077, gave Sappada to the Patriarchs of Aquileia in 1077.