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Introduction The buildings The votive tablets Other votive gifts |
The Great Saint Bernard Pass, at an altitude of 2469 meters, is on the border of Switzerland and Italy. It connects Martigny and the Rhône valley with Aosta and the Po valley. On the summit Jupiter was worshipped, associated with the Celtic deity Poeninus. The summit was therefore called Summus Poeninus, "the Pennine summit" ("In Summo Pennino" on the Tabula Peutingeriana). Later it was also called Mons Iovis in Latin, Monte Jove in Italian and Mont Joux in French. It received its current name from Bernard, a priest from Aosta, who around 1050 founded a hospice on the summit for travellers. The priests who ran the hospice also bred and trained the famous Saint Bernard rescue dogs. There is still a religious community on the summit, the hospice is active as hotel, and the dogs can be seen.
View of the hospice. Photo: Wikimedia, Ludovic Péron.The priests investigated a plateau with Roman remains testifying to the cult of Jupiter-Poeninus in the 1760's and in the 19th century. The finds were put on display in a Hospice museum. Buildings on the plateau were excavated by order of the Italian state in the years 1890-1894, and a plan was now published. On the plateau a statue of Saint Bernard was erected in 1905. A plaque on the column supporting the statue records the confirmation of Bernard as patron saint of the Alps by Pope Pius XI in 1923.
View of the pass. The statue of Saint Bernard stands in front of the white building to the left. The hospice is on the other side of the small lake.
Photo: Wikimedia, Hagai Agmon-Snir.Short stretches of old roads leading to the summit have been found, but their date is not clear.
A stretch of an old road. To the left the statue of Bernard, to the right the hospice.
Photo: Wikimedia, Phylog.The hospice on the summit took the place of a hospice in Bourg-Saint-Pierre, the last village before the summit on the Swiss side. Some inscriptions from the summit, including a milestone, were taken to the village.
View of Bourg-St-Pierre. Photo: Wikimedia, Flodur63.
Introduction
The buildings
The votive tablets
Other votive gifts
Literature
Blondel 1946; Blondel 1947; Wiblé 1978; Walser 1983(1); Walser 1983(2); Walser 1984; Drack-Fellmann 1988, 372-374; Drack-Fellmann 1991, 86-89; Appolonia-Wiblé-Framarin 2008.
[9-Feb-2024]
