Cottian Alps - History

History

For a long part of the middle ages Cottian Alps have been divided between Duchy of Savoy, which controlled their northern part and the easternmost slopes, and the Dauphiné, at the time independent from France kingdom. The Dauphins held, in addition to the south-western slopes of the range (Briançon and Queyras, nowadays on the French side), also the upper part of some valleys tributaries of the Po River (Valle di Susa, Chisone valley, Varaita valley). The Alpine territory of Dauphiné, known as Escartons, used to have a limited autonomy and to elect his own parliament. This semi-autonomuos status lasted also after the annexion of Dauphiné to France (1349), and was only abolished in 1713 due to the Treaty of Utrecht, which assigned to House of Savoy all the mountain area on the eastern side of the Cottian Alps.

After the treaty annexing Nice and Savoy to France, signed in Turin on March 1860 (Treaty of Turin), the north-western slopes of the range became part of French repubblic.

Two eastern valleys of the Cottian Alps (Pellice and Germanasca) have been for centuries a kind of sanctuary for the Waldensians, a Christian movement founded by Peter Waldo and which was persecuted as heretical from the 12th century onwards.