The market-town of St Lorenzen

The market-town of St Lorenzen is situated in the Pustertal, 800 m above sea level, at the confluence of

the River Gader coming from the south and the main River Rienz, and is therefore also called Northwestern Gate to the South Tyrolean Dolomites. To the east the Pustertal opens to the Bruneck Basin with the large Valley of the River Ahrn to the north. To the west, whereto the River Rienz flows, the valley narrows a bit.

Human presence in the area of St Lorenzen roots in the deepest layers of history. Archaeological findings prove human presence since the complete withdrawal of the Alpine Würm-Riß ice sheets, corresponding to the end of the Last Glaciation in Britain and that of the Wisconsin Ice Age in North America, the mysterious period of the Mesolithic.

On the spot a village then followed in prehistoric times, probably on the bottom of the valley and on terraces of the sloping Sonnenburger Weinleite, south of the River Rienz.

In historical time Sebatum, as it was called in Roman times, was subject to the Municipium Claudium Aguntum, located in what is today East Tyrol, but certainly maintained its function of capital village of the Pustertal.

This spiritual and secular hegemony which perhaps originated from prehistoric times then continues through the Middle Ages when the market-town is renamed St Lorenzen as refoundation by the Bayuvars.

Through 1227 the priest of St Lorenzen is invested with the archdiaconate by the archbishop of Brixen and provides the town of Bruneck which lies 4 km to the east and has in the meantime outgrown St Lorenzen, with up to 6 priests till the year 1610. In A.D. 1091 the Emperor Heinrich IV entrusts the already time-honoured Pustertal Shire with St Michael’s Castle to the Archbishop of Brixen. From this gift in the 13th c. issues St Michael’s Castle District Court and from 1271 on St Lorenzen is seat to the District Judge. With the rise of the star of Bruneck, summer residence of the bishop on the one hand and main emporium of the copper from the Ahrntal mines on the other, the star of the old market-town declines unchecked.

From 1452 on St lorenzen is once more positioned into limelight of supra-regional history in connection with the Benedictine Abbess of Sonnenburg’s eight years lasting controversy with the philosopher and Prince Bishop of Brixen Nikolaus Cusanus who also resided in Bruneck.

In this period the market-town also entrusts Michael Pacher to the creation of the triptich of St Lawrence, of which today unfortunately only the Madonna with the Child remains in the parish church. From then on St Lorenzen gradually slips into oblivion.

 As Bruneck was subject to the bishop, St Lorenzen could retain the administrative function of seat of the Austro-Hungarian imperial and royal district authority from 1786 to 1803.

In the years 1933/7 St Lorenzen was theatre to a major excavation campaign in the course of the reconstruction of part of the highway on the right hand side of the River Rienz. Through the centuries knowledge was maintained that St Lorenzen had once been a Roman mail station and the Italian fascist government was trying to support its thesis that the Romans had brought culture to the Alpine barbarians.

In 1999 the competences over the archaeological area passed from the Office for the Preservation of Monuments of Padova to the Province of South Tyrol.

Today St Lorenzen in the main lives from services, farming and the tourism provided to the village by the skiing area on the Kronplatz. Hotels, pensions and a camping ground offer the holiday-maker a comfortable stay.