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The Forte Albertino (also Forte di Vinadio) is an alpine fortress in Vinadio, Piedmont, located outside the town in the Stura di Demonte Valley. It is now used as a museum.
Forte Albertino was commissioned in 1834 by Charles Albert of Savoy and, following a brief reprieve between 1837 and 1839, finished in 1847. The fort is placed strategically close to the French border and the Maddalena Pass, giving Italian troops control of who entered the country. An estimated 4,000 men helped erect the fort. Its walls have a length of about 1,200 metres, with a total of 10 kilometres internal paths on three levels: the Upper Front, the Attack Front, and the Lower Front. The Upper and Lower Fronts consist of casements while the Attack Front had a ravelin and was the only point of access for communication with the outside world. This included communication with the town, Porta Francia, and the Pass.
The fort was never properly outfitted for war and was used as a prison for captured Garibaldini during the Battle of Aspromonte. After the dawn of the 20th century, Forte Albertino became a barracks, then an artillery warehouse. It was later bombed by the Allies during World War II and abandoned. It has since then been renovated and is now used as a museum.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.