Via Imperii
Trade route in the Holy Roman Empire
Via Imperii (Imperial Road) was one of the most important of a class of roads known collectively as imperial roads (German: Reichsstraßen) of the Holy Roman Empire. This old trade route ran in a south-north direction from Venice on the Adriatic Sea and Verona in the Kingdom of Italy across the Brenner Pass through Germany to the Baltic coast passing the following cities:
- Innsbruck in the County of Tyrol
- Augsburg in the Prince-Bishopric of Augsburg
- the Imperial city of Nuremberg
- Bayreuth, Berneck, Münchberg and Hof in the Principality of Bayreuth
- Plauen, Mylau and Reichenbach in the Vogtland region
- Zwickau, Altenburg, Regis, Borna, Markkleeberg and Connewitz in the Margraviate of Meissen
- Leipzig, intersection with east-west Via Regia
- Wittenberg in Saxe-Wittenberg
- Cölln/Berlin, capital of Brandenburg
- Bernau bei Berlin
- Stettin in the Duchy of Pomerania
The cities on the route held the privilege of staple right, merchants were obliged to use the toll road and in turn enjoyed protection by the Imperial authority under the terms of the Landfrieden.
Parts of the historic route are today marked by the Italian Strada Statale No. 12, the Austrian Landesstraßen B 182 and B 177 and the German Bundesstraße 2.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Via Imperii”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Via Imperii.png by Maximilian Dörrbecker (Chumwa), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Via Imperii und Via Regia.png by Maximilian Dörrbecker (Chumwa), CC BY-SA 2.5
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