Tione di Trento

Tione is the main centre of the Giudicarie valleys, and it was one of the Seven Pievi which in the Middle Ages enjoyed a degree of administrative autonomy under the prince-bishop of Trento. That autonomy came through the whole Habsburg period and ceased to have any function only under the Kingdom of Italy, from 1918: an institution that had outlived the bishops and the empire and ended with the new state. The shape of the comune has shifted twice as well: in 1928 Tione took in Bolbeno, Saone and Zuclo, and in 1952 Bolbeno and Zuclo were made comuni again.

On the twenty-first of August 1895 a fire broke out that destroyed almost the whole village and went on burning for more than a week. Until 1918 Tione had been the head of one of the twenty-one districts into which Austria divided the Tyrol, and the post office had opened here in 1851. Today the town holds the offices the valleys depend on — the land registry and the tavolare, the Giudicarie community, the hospital serving the Chiese valley, the Val Rendena and the outer Giudicarie — and the craft it is known for is still the making of candles.