La Scoperta delle Dolomiti

The Discovery of the Dolomites

Nowadays, it’s difficult to find anyone, at least in Europe, who doesn’t know the Dolomites or who doesn’t have a vague idea of the area when they hear about it.

The Dolomites are, at least since the historic edition of the 1956 Winter Olympic Games in Cortina d’Ampezzo, a universally known must for winter holidays, and for a few decades now they have enjoyed rapidly increasing success regarding summer attendance among the general public.

Contributing to the fame of the Dolomites are not only the quality of the tourist offer itself, but rather the unique and incomparable beauty of the mountain formations that characterize this area of the Eastern Alps and make it one of the most attractive mountain destinations in the whole world. And it was precisely the extraordinary beauty of the Dolomites, even before their unique geological characteristics, that formed the basis of the scientific discovery of the Pale Mountains.

There are very few records of knowledge of the Dolomites in modern times prior to the 18th Century. Albrecht Dürer dedicated a series of watercolors to these peaks in 1494, the first example of European landscape painting. Then the silence becomes almost absolute.

The Dolomites gained international and scientific notoriety at the end of the 18th Century, in the late Enlightenment, which was the most important intellectual moment after Humanism for Western Culture. There are two fundamental stages linked to the scientific discovery of the Dolomites.

The first crucial date is 1789, the year in which the geologist Deodat de Dolomieu first identified the peculiarities of the dolomite mineral that makes up the Pale Mountains. A few years later, Nicolas de Saussure, a friend of Dolomieu and a member of the prestigious family of Swiss scientists to which the famous linguist also belongs, confirmed the name “dolomite” for that particular mineral, in honor of his friend.

Goethe wrote about the Dolomites in his famous work “Italian Journey” (1786):

“The limestone Alps I have crossed so far are grey in colour and have beautiful and strangely irregular forms, although the rock is arranged in layers. However, since there are also arched layers and the rock crumbles in an extremely jagged way, the rock faces and peaks take on extraordinary forms.”

The second relevant date for the geology of the Dolomites is 1822, the year in which the geologist Leopold von Buch, after a careful and prolonged on-site study of the stratigraphy of the Dolomites, called his friend Alexander von Humboldt, at the time the leading expert in the field, to study them carefully. The carefully conducted studies by the two friends, figures of great relevance in the European cultural environment, contributed not only to making the Dolomites famous in scientific circles, but also to giving the Pale Mountains enormous resonance and fame in the artistic, literary, aesthetic, and cultural fields. Thanks to their work, the Dolomites gained a prestigious name known throughout European nations, initiating the golden age of not only scientific but also cultural explorations.

 Thus, the first literary publications on the Dolomites appeared: in 1837, John Murray’s “Murray’s Handbook” and Beda Weber’s “Reisehandbuch durch Tirol” saw the light in London. Both guides had remarkable editorial success, helping to spread the myth of the Dolomites among English and German travelers, artists, and explorers.

“They are different from all other mountains and are not seen anywhere else in the Alps. They attract attention by the singularity and picturesqueness of their forms, by their sharp peaks or horns, which sometimes rise into pinnacles and obelisks, at others extend into jagged ridges, indented like the jaw of an alligator; now they screen the valley with a steep precipice many thousands of feet high, and often split with numerous fissures that all run almost vertically. They are perfectly barren, devoid of vegetation of any kind, and usually light yellow or whitish in colour.”

John Murray, 1837

 From 1864 is the famous “The Dolomite Mountains” by the English writers Gilbert and Churchill, the result of a year of wanderings through the Pale Mountains. The work had the merit of coining the name “Dolomites” to define the mountains composed of dolomite and definitively contributed to extending knowledge of the area to a wider public, made up not only of scientists and artists. In 1868, when John Ball, the famous mountaineering explorer of the Dolomites who first conquered the summit of Pelmo, wrote “The Eastern Alps”, the name Dolomites was already officially taken as acquired.

“…the sharp contrast between their high sheer walls, crowned by jagged peaks and pinnacles, among which a suspended glacier is seen, and the soft, swelling green slopes at their feet, which give the viewer the impression of having been shot up from below in their present, perfect and complete form… (…) nothing can be more singular than their appearance, and in certain lights, such as sunset or moonlight, they appear positively in depth.”

 J. Gilbert and G.C. Churchill, 1864

From 1872 is “Untrodden Peaks and Unfrequented Valleys“, an autobiographical travel diary written by the Englishwoman Amelia B. Edwards, recounting her wanderings through the Dolomites. Although the book is practically unknown in the writer’s homeland, it still holds great relevance in the Dolomites today, where it is often cited both for its historical interest and as a splendid example of how the Pale Mountains can enchant visitors.

“through a hole in the mountains at the farther end of the lake, we are startled by a strange apparition of pale fantastic peaks lifted high against the northern horizon (…) we had not sought them nor had we awaited them – and yet here they were, so unknown, yet so unmistakable! One feels at once that they are unlike all other mountains, and yet they are precisely what one expected them to be”

A. B. Edwards, 1872

Other important works and publications on the Dolomites followed in the European literary sphere: “Holiday in Tyrol” by Walter White (1876), “Les Pais des Dolomites” by Jules Leclercq (1880), “Aus den Alpen” by Robert von Lendenfeld (1896), “Die Dolomiten” by Theodor Christomannos (1910).

Along with the scientific and literary thread, the thread related to the mountaineering exploration of the Pale Mountains also contributed to spreading the fame of the Dolomites. John Ball conquered Pelmo in 1857 and published “A Guide to the Eastern Alps” (1868) a few years later; followed by “The Italian Alps” (1875) and “Wanderungen in den Dolomiten” (1877) by Paul Grohmann, “A Pioneer in the high Alps” by Francis Fox Tuckett (1874), “Im Hochgebirge” by Emil Zsigmondy (1889), “Climbing in the Dolomites” by Leone Sinigaglia (1896). This thread of mountaineering literature is continued by Emilio Comici, Tita Piaz, Reinhold Messner and many others.

“To devise the most logical and elegant way to reach a summit, avoiding the easiest and most comfortable slope, and to climb it with a conscious effort of all nerves, muscles, fibers, desperately stretched to beat the attraction of the void and vertigo, is a true work of art; it is an action of great human beauty that, as such, lives in the spirit of great artistic creations.”

E. Comici

At the time of Dolomieu’s visit to the area, the hotel sector in the Dolomites was already developed, certainly not at current levels; however, both in the Tyrolean and Venetian parts of the Dolomites there were already guesthouses, taverns and small hotels that thrived thanks to frequent commercial exchanges between the Serenissima and the Austrian and German powers. From the beginning of the 19th Century until about the middle of the century, there was a limited flow of visitors generated by scholars who went there to study the geological peculiarities of the Dolomites.

In the second half of the 19th Century, when mountaineering explorations and subsequently “cultural” ones began, there was an increase in the accommodation potential of the Dolomite area. From about 1870 to 1910, the tourist hospitality industry underwent massive structuring, reaching the quality levels of the Swiss Alps in the most prestigious resorts (like Cortina d’Ampezzo), although hotel development was transversal throughout the area. 

The Great War was probably the only moment of stagnation in the tourist growth of the Dolomite area; fortunately, this phase was overcome in the period immediately following the conflict.

From the 1930s onwards, the true blossoming of modern tourism in the Dolomites began, thanks to the development of the ski sector in Europe. Agordino, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Cadore, Val Badia, Val di Fassa were among the first localities to gain national and even international notoriety: Italy’s first “Pro Loco” (local tourism association) was born right in the shadow of Monte Agner, in Voltago Agordino.

From ’56, that is, from the Cortina d’Ampezzo Winter Olympics, ski lifts began to be built in the Dolomites. Alpine skiing began to bring mass tourism to these previously limitedly accessible alpine hermitages. With the entertainment industry consisting of skiing, a rapidly growing sport since the mid-1960s, the Dolomites began to gain international fame, not only for the ski slopes themselves, but once again for their incredibly suggestive landscapes. Simultaneously with the construction of the lifts, the hotel network and all ancillary infrastructures for tourist reception began to be strengthened. Fortunately, we say today, in very few cases did the construction of imposing hotel structures based on the French model occur, and the Dolomites still remain a place where the family approach to tourist reception is predominant.

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