The making of the route, c. 1200–1500

The barrier of the Schöllenen

The Gotthard massif lies at the centre of the Alpine arc, where the watersheds of the Reuss, the Ticino, the Rhône and the Rhine meet close to it. On a map, the pass offers the most direct connection between the Upper Rhine and Lombardy: a traveller from Basel reaches Lucerne overland, crosses the Lake of Lucerne to Flüelen, ascends the Reuss valley to Göschenen, crosses the pass at about 2,100 metres and descends the Leventina to Bellinzona, from where Milan lies two or three days away.¹ For most of antiquity and the early Middle Ages this route was of local importance only. The reason was a single obstacle. Above Göschenen the Reuss forces its way through the Schöllenen, a gorge of granite walls in which there was no room for a track. Traffic between the Reuss valley and the high valley of Urseren (Andermatt, Hospental, Realp) had to climb around the gorge by difficult paths, and loaded animals could not use it. The Romans used the Great St Bernard and the Grisons passes (Julier, Septimer, Splügen). The Gotthard does not appear in the Roman itineraries, and in the early Middle Ages it served mainly local needs, such as the grazing rights of the people of the Leventina. The emperors of the Middle Ages, when they travelled to Italy, preferred the Brenner, the Septimer and the Great St Bernard.²

The opening of the Schöllenen is not recorded by any contemporary charter. Historians place it between about 1150 and 1230, most probably around 1200, on the basis of indirect evidence: a bridge over the Reuss in the gorge (the first "Devil's Bridge", Teufelsbrücke, attested in 1306 as the stiebende Brugge) and the Twärrenbrücke, a walkway fixed to the face of the Kilchberg rock, which carried the path around a projecting cliff above the torrent.³ The builders are unknown, although the participation of the Walser, German-speaking settlers from the Valais who had lived in Urseren since the twelfth century, is regarded as probable.⁴ The Twärrenbrücke remained the weak point of the route for almost five hundred years. It was replaced in 1707–1708 by the Urnerloch, a tunnel of about 64 metres cut through the rock by the Ticinese engineer Pietro Morettini of Cerentino, which is regarded as the first road tunnel through the Alps.⁵ The Devil's Bridge was rebuilt in stone in 1595, and in 1828– 1830 Karl Emanuel Müller built a new bridge together with the carriage road through the gorge. The present road bridge dates from 1955–1956.⁶

Notes

1. HLS, art. "Gotthardpass" (version of 30.08.2016), https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/007466/2016-08-30/, on the pass and the Gotthard route; the French version, art. "Gothard, col du", https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/fr/articles/007466/, gives the altitude of the pass as 2,108 m. ↩
2. HLS, art. "Alpen" (version of 17.07.2013), https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/008569/2013-07-17/, on the Great St Bernard as an imperial road under Claudius and on the Splügen, Septimer and Julier as Roman routes to Como; HLS, art. "Gotthardpass" (version of 30.08.2016), https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/007466/2016-08-30/, which states that the pass, unlike the Great St Bernard, is not recorded in the Roman itineraries and played only a subordinate role in the early Middle Ages, with grazing rights of the inhabitants of the Leventina; Wikipedia, "Septimer Pass", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septimer_Pass (consulted as a last resort), on the Septimer, the Great St Bernard and the Brenner as the routes preferred by travelling emperors in the Middle Ages. The standard account remains Aloys Schulte, Geschichte des mittelalterlichen Handels und Verkehrs zwischen Westdeutschland und Italien mit Ausschluss von Venedig, 2 vols (Leipzig 1900), listed in the bibliography of the HLS article "Gotthardpass". ↩
3. HLS, art. "Schöllenen" (Hans Stadler, version of 11.04.2011), https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/008796/2011-04-11/, which dates the opening of the gorge by the Devil's Bridge (1306 stiebende Brugge) and the Twärrenbrücke along the Kilchberg rock to between 1150 and 1230; HLS, art. "Gotthardpass" (version of 30.08.2016), https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/007466/2016-08-30/, which places it probably around 1200. ↩
4. HLS, art. "Schöllenen" (as above), which regards the participation of the Walser settled in Urseren since the twelfth century as probable; HLS, art. "Ursern" (Hans Stadler, version of 14.01.2014), https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/007467/2014-01-14/, on their arrival over the Furka in the late twelfth century. ↩
5. HLS, art. "Schöllenen" (as above), for the Urnerloch of 1707–1708 as the first road tunnel of the Alps; HLS, art. "Morettini, Pietro" (Marino Viganò, version of 05.02.2009), https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/010270/2009-02-05/, for his birth at Cerentino in 1660; Wikipedia, "Urnerloch", https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urnerloch (consulted as a last resort), for the original length of 64 metres (about 70 metres today). ↩
6. HLS, art. "Schöllenen" (as above), for the bridge and carriage road of 1828–1830 by Karl Emanuel Müller and the present bridge of 1955–1956; the same article records the name Teiffels Brucken in 1587. Wikipedia, "Schöllenen Gorge", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schöllenen_Gorge (consulted as a last resort), for the replacement of the wooden bridge by a stone bridge in 1595. ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of August 2025.