The village did not exist: it was born with the fortress that emperor Francis I had built between 1833 and 1838, after general Lefebvre and his two thousand five hundred Saxons had been caught here in 1809, in the narrow that has been called the Sachsenklemme ever since, by Andreas Hofer's Tyroleans.
The comune has been called Fortezza only since 1942: before that it was Mezzaselva, from the name of the oldest hamlet, which in 1223 is Mittenwalde, «in the middle of the forest». With the pact of the Triple Alliance, in 1882, the fort lost all usefulness and became a munitions depot; in 1939 the reservoir for the Bressanone power station was built and Prà di Sotto ended up under water.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Fortezza
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Places to see within 25 km
Outside Fortezza, but an easy day trip away.