The name of Silandro has crossed three languages without changing its root. The first settlement on the alluvial fan of the stream was called Slaranusa, which in Celtic means at the river of willows; with the arrival of the Germanic tribes it became Slanderes, and that is how it appears in 1077, in a document by which the emperor Henry IV gave those holdings to Altwin, bishop of Bressanone. Those were the years of the investiture struggle, and with that donation the emperor made sure the valley stayed in the hands of his own men. The form Schlanders arrives in 1518, and in 1923 the place-name was Italianized into Silandro.
For centuries the place was run by a military order: in 1235 Frederick II gave the church of Silandro to the Teutonic Order, which took the surrounding farms with it and, with them, the economic and religious life of the district. The sixteenth century, by contrast, was the century of revolts: in 1525 the peasants rose as they did across the German lands, and soon after the Anabaptist Georg Blaurock passed through, making converts. By 1556 Silandro had become a centre of the movement, its prior Hans Pürchner was persecuted for it, and in 1561 another Anabaptist, Balthasar Dosser, was imprisoned in the town, deported and executed at Innsbruck. Above the roofs stands the highest bell tower in South Tyrol, on the parish church reconsecrated in 1505.
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📅 Every year, on 15 August; 5 December brings the Krampus run on «devil's day»
Silandro celebrates Our Lady of the Assumption on 15 August, in the church dedicated to her. On 5 December, «devil's day», up to a hundred participants dressed as Krampus run through the town's streets.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Silandro, but an easy day trip away.
