The (SAT) is an

alpine club The first alpine club, the Alpine Club, based in the United Kingdom, was founded in London in 1857 as a gentlemen's club. It was once described as: :"a club of English gentlemen devoted to mountaineering, first of all in the Alps, members of which ...

operating in the Italian alpine province of

Trento Trento ( or ; Ladin and lmo, Trent; german: Trient ; cim, Tria; , ), also anglicized as Trent, is a city on the Adige River in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol in Italy. It is the capital of the autonomous province of Trento. In the 16th centu ...

. It is the largest branch of the

Italian Alpine Club The Club Alpino Italiano is the senior Italian alpine club which stages climbing competitions, operates alpine huts, marks and maintains paths, and is active in protecting the Alpine environment. It was founded in Turin in 1863 by the then finan ...

History

SAT was founded in

Madonna di Campiglio Madonna di Campiglio (german: Sankt Maria im Pein) is a village and a ski resort in northeast Italy. It is a ''frazione'' of the ''comune'' of Pinzolo. The village lies in the Val Rendena at an elevation of above sea level, and has approximatel ...

on 2 September 1872 under the name of Alpine Society of

Trentino Trentino ( lld, Trentin), officially the Autonomous Province of Trento, is an autonomous province of Italy, in the country's far north. The Trentino and South Tyrol constitute the region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, an autonomous region ...

. The founding members intended to promote knowledge of the Trentino mountains, tourist development of the valleys, and the Italianness of Trentino. To pursue these goals, they constructed huts, created paths, financed hoteliers, organized mountain guides, climbed peaks, and published geographic and mountaineering writings. SAT's first president was (1822–1884); its first vice president was Nepomuceno Bolognini (1823–1900). Members were summoned twice a year to spring and summer meetings known as ''the congresses'', during which mountaineering, geographic, naturalistic and historical reports were presented and the association's progress was measured. The first congress took place in Madonna di Campiglio in 1872; in 1994 its hundredth congress was celebrated in

. The SAT was not a group of mountaineers and hikers, but of a group of

bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...

irredentists Irredentism is usually understood as a desire that one state annexes a territory of a neighboring state. This desire is motivated by ethnic reasons (because the population of the territory is ethnically similar to the population of the parent sta ...

who wanted to implement "cultural appropriation and the acquisition of material possession of the homeland". In fact, in 1874 the society was dissolved by the Austrian authorities for pro-Italian activities. Then, in 1877, it was renamed to ('Tridentini mountaineering company', SAT). The nationalist character of the SAT led to the so-called refuge war, a clash that expressed itself in the

toponomy Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of ''toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...

of the mountain, between the flags secretly hidden on the peaks, and the constructions of "double" shelters built alongside each other. For example, during the inauguration of the Quintino Sella hut in 1906, the participants could observe the yard of the German competitor . But shortly afterwards, World War I broke out and the SAT was dissolved again. Many of its militants were interned or forced into confinement, while others took refuge in Italy. In 1920 SAT became a section of the

(CAI), maintaining autonomy. On 7 January 1921 the workers' subsection of SOSAT, a mountaineering workers' group was formed on the initiative of Nino Peterlongo, who had founded a section of the Unione Operai Escursionisti Italiani ('Union of Italian Hikers) in 1919 in Trento. In 2012 SAT had over 27,000 members, divided into 82 sections and 10 groups. It has 34 shelters, 12 bivouacs and various support points and social huts, cares for the signage and maintenance of over 6,000 km of trails; Its alpine relief, founded in 1952, has 800 volunteers divided into 37 stations spread across the provincial territory with a cyanophilic and

speleological Speleology is the scientific study of caves and other karst features, as well as their make-up, structure, physical properties, history, life forms, and the processes by which they form (speleogenesis) and change over time (speleomorphology). ...

unit. The headquarters of the association is located in

in the palace Saracini-Cresseri (16th century), which houses the SAT museum, the historical archive, the SAT mountain library, the SAT section of Trento, the SUSAT (University Section), the SAT Chorus, the Provincial College of the Alpine Guides, the SAT Rock Cluster and the Giorgio Graffer Mountaineering and Mountaineering School. SAT operates voluntarily in the

Dolomites The Dolomites ( it, Dolomiti ; Ladin: ''Dolomites''; german: Dolomiten ; vec, Dołomiti : fur, Dolomitis), also known as the Dolomite Mountains, Dolomite Alps or Dolomitic Alps, are a mountain range located in northeastern Italy. They form par ...

and the mountains of

References

{{Authority control Clubs and societies in Italy Alpine clubs Climbing organizations