Dolomite Alps

The Dolomite Alps around Belluno form a group of pale limestone massifs between the Adige, Piave, Puster and Sugana valleys. Marmolada, Sella, Civetta, Pelmo and many smaller towers rise above forested valleys and high pastures. Passes separate the mountains into distinct blocks, giving travellers a choice among narrow corridors.

Ladin communities preserved a Romance language in the valleys between Germanic and Italian-speaking regions. Farmers cultivated lower slopes, moved cattle to summer pastures and cut hay where snow and rock left brief growing seasons. Iron ore from the Bressanone bishops' mines was carried to smelting sites where mountain woods supplied charcoal. Small forges used streams for water power.

Monasteries, bishops, local lords and the Venetian state competed for control of routes and mineral wealth. The Council of Trent met at the southern edge of the range in the sixteenth century, bringing churchmen and traffic into the valleys. Mountain passes also made the Dolomites part of wider Tyrolean and Italian political space.

The name Dolomites entered natural science late. Déodat de Dolomieu studied dolomite in the late eighteenth century, and the label entered a travel guide in 1837. The communities already knew the mountains as Monti Pallidi, the pale mountains, a name drawn from the rock's bright colour.