The name comes from an exchange of academic courtesies between Dolomieu and de Saussure.
Few people know it, but the Dolomites came close to being called the Saussurites. The name Dolomites, as has often been recalled recently on the occasion of the Pale Mountains’ inscription on Unesco’s «World Heritage» list, in fact refers to Déodat de Dolomieu, a scientist, traveller and adventurer of the late eighteenth century, protagonist of a true «alpine odyssey».
Dolomieu, indeed, during the summer of 1789 — a decisive year for the fate of Europe and the world — travelled as many as 1,300 kilometres exploring what up to that point had been called the Venetian Alps. It would be he who made known to the great men of science of the time the orographic and geological peculiarities of the mountain range that dominates the Veneto plain to the north.
What struck him was the exceptional nature of the stone, an iridescent mineral that at sunset catches the sun’s rays, lighting peaks and pinnacles up red. Dolomieu sent samples of it to the University of Geneva, to Nicolas-Théodore de Saussure, son of Horace-Bénédict, a key figure in the discovery of the Alps and, in particular, of Mont Blanc.
He analysed the stone, identified its characteristics, and recognised it with the chemical formula MgCa(CO3)2, a double carbonate of calcium and magnesium. Dolomieu so appreciated his colleague’s work that he proposed calling the rock Saussurite. Nicolas-Théodore thanked him and returned the favour: in his articles he referred to the mineral as dolomite, declining — with a gesture of academic chivalry far removed from today’s customs — Dolomieu’s offer.
Ever since, the most beautiful mountains in the world have borne that name. The curious story is recounted in a lovely little book by Marco Albino Ferrari, In viaggio sulle Alpi. Luoghi e storie d’alta quota (Einaudi, 236 pp., 13.50 euros), a veritable tour of the alpine world, conducted by encountering figures, stories, dramas and adventures, in search of the present-day «recognisability» of certain very specific areas of Europe’s principal mountain range: from Monviso to Gran Paradiso, from Mont Blanc to the Matterhorn, from Monte Rosa to the Bernese Oberland, from the Engadine to the Dolomites and on to the Julian Alps.
Returning to the chapter devoted to the Dolomites, the historical analysis of tourism development in the area proves interesting.
In this regard, decisive was the construction of the Grande Strada delle Dolomiti (Great Dolomites Road), a genuine dream cherished by Theodor Christomannos, a lawyer of evident Greek origin, realised on 13 September 1909 with the inauguration of this incredible work. The ribbon of asphalt that still today connects Bolzano to Cortina, one of the most striking driving roads on the entire continent, opened up a whole new era dominated by the tourist.
This is when the great historic hotels were born — «No road, no hotel. No hotel, no road!», Christomannos used to repeat — : the Hotel di Misurina, the Christomannos Haus at the Pordoi, for example, true mirages for «the motor-tourist», the quintessence of modern man who, overcoming the obstacles imposed by the power of nature, seeks his own individual freedom.
The high Dolomite passes, the Falzarego, the Giau, become a true «friendly, almost domestic universe… a kind of large, compact, uniform garden, held together by a dense network of roads». A universe that one of the writers most beloved by mountain enthusiasts, Fosco Maraini, described thus in the 1930s. «The Dolomites are fundamentally different from the rest of the Alps, because they strike the eye like cathedrals, castles, fortresses, bell towers, minarets, sea stacks, more or less isolated and scattered above a vast interweaving of valleys.
It seems, in fact, that the rocks originally formed on a sea bed, which was then lifted up by titanic movements of the earth’s crust. Here and there splendid, glorious, incredible ruins remained, some shaped like a stern manor (the Pelmo), others in the image of a petrified wave (the Civetta), others still embodying petrified lightning bolts or flames (the Cinque Dita).
The most sublime of the cathedrals is that formed by the trio of the Tre Cime di Lavaredo». The author rightly asks whether such absolute beauty, so well captured by Maraini’s words, can still be fully appreciated, now that Christomannos’s initial positivist ideals have given way to a genuine «building fever» that has turned those very asphalt roads into the most crowded in Europe.
The debate, in this regard, remains open.
(Article by Alessandro Tortato for Corriere del Veneto, 19 August 2009)
– In the photo, Archduke Leopold Salvator of Austria-Tuscany (Stará Boleslav, 15 October 1863 – Vienna, 4 September 1931), arrives at the Christomannos Haus on the Pordoi Pass in the winter of 1916, then the seat of the K.K. POST UND TELEGRAFEN –