Ljubljana

Ljubljana grew beneath its castle beside the Ljubljanica, on routes connecting the northern Adriatic with the Danube lands. In the 13th century the town rose to prominence under the Spanheim dukes of Carinthia, becoming a center of Carniola. Merchants from northern Italy joined local traders in a thriving exchange, while the Ljubljanica and Sava carried traffic toward the east. The Habsburgs inherited the town and its province in 1335, gaining an important foothold on the way to the sea.

An earthquake in 1511 damaged Ljubljana, which was rebuilt with new walls and Renaissance buildings. The city became a center of the Slovene Reformation: Primož Trubar published the first books in Slovene in 1550, and Jurij Dalmatin translated the Bible. In the Napoleonic wars Ljubljana briefly acquired a wider administrative role as capital of the French Illyrian Provinces from 1809 to 1813. After the return of Austrian rule, European rulers gathered here for a congress of the Holy Alliance in 1821.