Piedmont, the land at the foot of the mountains, launched a united Italy
Hemmed in on three sides by the Alps, Piedmont takes its name from medieval Latin for the foot of the mountains. Its rulers, the House of Savoy, drove Italian unification between 1859 and 1861, and Turin served as the new kingdom's first capital before the crown moved on to Florence and Rome.
Covering 25,387 square kilometres, Piedmont is Italy's second-largest region after Sicily, bordering France and Switzerland. The river Po, Italy's largest, rises on the slopes of Monviso in the west and drains the arc of Alps and Apennines around it. The land ranges from the peaks of Monte Rosa and Gran Paradiso to the rice paddies of Vercelli and Novara and the vineyard hills of the Langhe and Montferrat. Celtic-Ligurian tribes such as the Taurini lived here until the Romans took control around 220 BC and founded Augusta Taurinorum, today's Turin.
After Rome fell, Burgundians, Ostrogoths, Lombards and Franks passed through in turn. In 1046 Otto of Savoy attached Piedmont to the County of Savoy, then ruled from Chambéry, now in France. Savoy became a duchy in 1416, Duke Emanuele Filiberto moved the capital to Turin in 1563, and in 1720 the dukes became kings of Sardinia. Napoleonic France set up short-lived client republics and annexed the region in 1802, but the Congress of Vienna restored the kingdom and added Genoa to make it a stronger buffer against France.
Having failed against Austria in 1820 to 1821 and 1848 to 1849, Piedmont succeeded in leading unification, a process sometimes called Piedmontisation. The Savoys became kings of Italy, and the heir to the throne was styled Prince of Piedmont. Once the capital left Turin, Piedmont's political weight shrank, but it became a heartland of Italian industry.
That industrial story has turned. Fiat no longer makes mass-market cars in Turin; its car business now sits within Stellantis, and design houses such as Pininfarina and Italdesign were sold abroad. Italian vehicle output fell from 2.22 million in 1989 to 0.92 million in 2019. Aerospace remains strong, including final assembly of F-35 jets near Novara and Vega rockets in Turin, while Biella processes wool and Valenza makes jewellery.
Source: Piedmont
