| Trento | Bolzano |

The region of current Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol was conquered by the Romans in 15 BC. After the end of the Western Empire, it was divided between the Lombards (from the south up to Salorno), Alamanni (Vinschgau-Val Venosta) and Bavarians (from Bolzano to Brenner). After the creation of the Kingdom of Italy under Charlemagne, the frontier mark of Trento included the counties of Bolzano and Venosta, while the Duchy of Bavaria received the remained part.
From the 11th century onwards, part of the region was governed by the prince-bishops of Trento and Brixen, to whom the Holy Roman Emperors had given extensive temporal powers over their bishoprics. The rest was part of the County of Tyrol: in 1363 its last titular, Marguerite of Gorizia (von Görz) ceded it to the House of Habsburg. The region was largely Germanized in the early Renaissance (14th century), and important German poets like Oswald von Wolkenstein were originally of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol.
The two Bishoprics were secularized by the Treaty of Luneville of 1803 and given to the Habsburgs. Two years later, following the Austrian defeat at Austerlitz, the region was given to Napoleon's ally Bavaria (Treaty of Pressburg, 1805). The new rulers provoked a peasant rebellion, led by local hero Andreas Hofer, in 1809 which was soon crushed; the Treaty of Paris of February 1810 split the area between Austria and the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy. After Napoleon's defeat, in 1815, the region returned to Austria. The Italian denomination of Alto Adige was created during the French occupation, who called it #*Haute Adige#* in order to avoid any reference to the historical Austrian Tyrol region.
During the First World War, major battles were fought high in the Alps and Dolomites between Austrian and Italian forces, for whom control of the region was a key strategic objective. The collapse of the Austrian war effort enabled Italian troops to occupy the region in 1918 and its annexation was confirmed in the post-war treaties, which awarded the region to Italy under the terms of the Treaty of Saint-Germain.