Aosta

Aosta  (French: Aoste, ) is the principal ceety o the bilingual Valle d'Aosta in the Italian Alps,  north-northwast o Turin. It is situatit near the Italian entrance o the Mont Blanc Tunnel, at the confluence o the Buthier an the Dora Baltea, an at the junction o the Great and Little St. Bernard routes. Aosta is no the caipital o the province, as these functions are shared bi the region an the communes.

History
Aosta wis settled in proto-historic times an later became a centre o the Salassi, mony o whom wur killed or sauld intae slavery bi the Romans in 25 BC. John Lemprière, Lorenzo DaPonte, & John David Ogilby (1839), Bibliotheca Classica: Or, A Dictionary of All the Principal Names and Terms, (Tenth American Edition), New York: W.E. Dean. Salassi, p. 281 The campaign wis led bi Marcus Terentius Varro, who then foondit the Roman colony o Augusta Praetoria Salassorum, hoosin 3,000 retired veterans. Efter 11 BC Aosta became the caipital o the Alpes Graies ("Grey Alps") province o the Empire. Its position at the confluence o twa rivers, at the end o the Great an the Little St Bernard Pass, gave it considerable military importance, an its layoot wis that o a Roman military camp.

Efter the faw o the Wastren Empire, the ceety wis conquered, in turn, bi the Burgundians, the Ostrogoths, the Byzantines. The Lombards, who haed annexed it tae their Italian kinrick, wur expelled bi the Frankish Empire unner Pepin the Short. Unner his son, Charlemagne, Aosta acquired importance as a post on the Via Francigena, leadin frae Aachen tae Italy. Efter 888 AD it wis pairt o the renewed Kinrick o Italy unner Arduin o Ivrea an Berengar o Friuli.

In the 10t century Aosta became pairt o the Kinrick o Burgundy. Efter the faw o the latter in 1032, it became pairt o the lands o Coont Humbert I o the Hoose o Savoy. Efter the creation o the coonty o Savoy, wi its caipital in Chambéry, Aosta led the unification o Italy.

Unner the Hoose o Savoy, Aosta wis grantit a special status that it maintained when the new Italian Republic wis proclaimit in 1948.

Transport
Aosta railway station, opened in 1886, forms pairt o the Chivasso–Aosta railwey, an is an aw a junction station for a branch line tae nearbi Pré-Saint-Didier, in the Valdigne, on the wey towards Courmayeur.

Aosta Airport is a short distance tae the east o the ceety.

Internaitional relations

Aosta is twinned wi:
 Albertville, Fraunce
 Narbonne, Fraunce
 Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, Fraunce
 San Giorgio Morgeto, Italy
 Sinaia, Romanie
 Martigny, Swisserland

References



Further readin
 Carlo Promis, Le antichità di Aosta, (Turin, 1862);
 Édouard Bérard, Atti  della  Società di Archeologia di Torino, iii. 119 seq.; Notizie degli Scavi, passim;
 Alfredo d'Andrade, Relazione dell' Ufficio Regionale per la conservazione dei Monumenti del Piemonte e della Liguria (Turin, 1899), 46 seq.

Freemit airtins

Virtual Museum Vallée (VMV), virtual museum o Aosta ceety 
 Augusta Praetoria  Site plan & photos from the Aosta Valley Regional Authority.
Ancient Places TV: HD Video of Aosta, Italy 


Category:Roman amphitheatres in Italy