newsletter-item – The Swiss Spectator

The ancient centre and nature of the Episcopal town of Sitten

Sion (Sitten in German) in the canton of Valais (Wallis) is one of Europe’s most important prehistoric archaeological sites. The basin of the Sionne, the Rhone, the Valeria and the Tourbillon hills have been continuously inhabited since prehistoric times. At the end of the 1st century BC, Sion became the capital of the Sedunes, one of the four Celtic peoples of Valais. The other tribes were the Nantuates, Verager and Uberer.

Saint-Théodule

L’église Saint-Théodule and his life (1596), Hans Bock the Elder (1550-1624).

The Roman settlement was primarily located in the area of the present-day Church of St. Theodul and on the western side of Valeria Hill. Large Roman bathing complexes were found under the church, which have been partially excavated. By the mid-4th century, Christianity had already become the dominant religion.

St. Theodul Church and the square of the cathedral

The bishop’s seat was relocated from Martigny to Sion at the end of the 6th century, and the first cathedral was also constructed during this time. King Rudolf III (977-1032) of Burgundy’s gift of the Valais to the bishop in 999 made the episcopal city the county’s capital.

The old town, viewed from the Valeria.

The prince-bishop had jurisdiction and administered the county through fiefs and officials. The inhabitants of Sion were subject to the bishop’s Meier (maior) as judge, the Viztum (vicedominus) as administrator and the Weibel (salterus).

The decline of the feudal social order and concessions by the bishop led to the citizens of Zion becoming increasingly independent. A document from 1217 can be considered the city’s first freedom document.

De Salle du Grand Conseil, the 145th General Assembly of the Societe d’histoire de l’art en Suisse (SHAS)/Gesellschaft für Schweizerische Kunstgeschichte (GSK) in Sion on 14 June 2025

In 1338, the bishop recognised the rights of the citizens through a ‘letter of freedom’. In 1339, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Ludwig the Bavarian (1282-1347), granted the city the status of a free Reichsstadt. (imperial immediacy or Rechtsunmittelbarkeit).

The bishop could no longer ignore the increased wealth and power of citizens, as was the case in more cities of the Holy Roman Empire. Sitten was also one of the seven Zenden/Zehnden (dizains in French) of Oberwallis and, thus, a powerful political player.

Majorie Castle and the Museum of Art

In the 15th century, the episcopal town became embroiled in a power struggle between Savoy and Oberwallis, known as the Raronhandel of 1414-1418. During the Burgundian Wars (1474-1477), Savoy reconquered the city in 1475.

However, Savoy’s success was short-lived, as the Zenden of Oberwallis defeated Savoy’s troops in the same year and conquered Unterwallis. The seven Zenden then ruled the area as Untertanengebiet/territoire sujet until 1798.

The city experienced relatively peaceful times until 1798. Even the Reformation was a relatively calm period, although a large community of Protestants had emerged by the mid-sixteenth century. However, the Zenden of Oberwallis chose for the old faith in 1603.

However, the period of revolutionary France from 1789 onwards brought Wallis and Sitten to the brink of civil war. Supporters of French revolutionary ideals and representatives of the Ancien Régime were rapidly polarising.

Zinal, Val d’Anniviers, the flag of the Helvetic Republic, June 2025

Things remained unsettled after the French invasion in 1798 and Napoleon’s founding of the Helvetic Republic (1798-1803). Oberwallis even started an armed rebellion in 1799, and Sitten, as the government town of the Helvetic Republic, was even pillaged.

Napoleon intervened in 1802 and declared Valais an independent Republic (i.e., not part of the Helvetic Republic but under French control). In 1810, the appearance of independence was over, and Napoleon annexed Wallis as the new Simplon Department of the French Empire.

The History Museum

Allied troops ended the French era in 1813, and in 1815, Sitten became the capital of the new canton of Valais.

However, peace had not returned. Supporters of the Ancien Régime and reformists were as irreconcilably opposed as ever. The confrontation eventually led to the Battle of Triente Bridge in 1844, the Sonderbund’s affiliation, and a lost war in 1847.

Natural History Museum

The new Constitution of the canton of Valais came into force in January 1848, and the new Municipal Law in 1851. After several amendments to the Constitution after 1848, the draft of a new Constitution for the canton was rejected by the citizens of Oberwallis and Unterwallis by a large majority. Local government also underwent several changes from 1851 in line with further democratisation. Today, the majority of the city is French-speaking.

(Source and further information: gemeinde Sitten; Sitten, Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz)

The environment and nature of Sitten

The Valère and Tourbillon hills in the canton of Valais/Wallis are included in the federal inventory of landscapes of national interest (Inventaire fédéral des paysages, sites et monuments naturels/Das Bundesinventar der Landschaften und Naturdenkmäler). They offer refuge to a large number of plants and small animals, some of which are very rare.

These hills result from geological forces that formed the Alps millions of years ago and from the erosion of glaciers that, 20,000 to 15,000 years ago, covered the Rhone valley with a 1,500- to 2,000-metre-thick ice sheet.

For centuries, the dry meadows and grasslands have been the habitat of plants of Mediterranean or oriental origin adapted to the dry climate. Several rare insects, birds, small mammals and Mediterranean fauna feel at home in this environment.

The slopes of the hills are covered with steppe grassland, which is yellow and dry. They are structured by rocky outcrops of quartzite, a very ancient rock. In the valleys and on the mountain slopes, traces of centuries-old agriculture and viticulture can still be seen, irrigated by the famous suones, which draw water from the Rhone and numerous streams.

Impressions of Sion/Sitten

The Alps in Natural Perspective

Disasters in the Alpine region and Switzerland are in the news almost daily. Avalanches, landslides, melting glaciers and permafrost alternate with periods that are too dry and too wet. The climate is changing, and this has repercussions for humanity in many areas.

The causes and consequences are not discussed here; the emphasis is on a perspective of structural development that extends far beyond the short human existence, encompassing time scales of several thousand, even tens of thousands, or millions of years.

Moiry Glacier

The Gornergletscher

In a relatively short period, approximately 10,000 years since the end of the last Ice Age, humanity has managed to utilise almost the entire Swiss Alpine region for tourism, agriculture, residential areas, industry, roads and railways, tunnels, and hotels and restaurants, up to an altitude of 3,883 metres.

Matterhorn Glacier Paradise

These grandiose (technological) achievements have grown considerably, especially since the mid-nineteenth century. However, for nature, 10,000 years doesn’t even represent a second on the scale of the Earth’s history, which spans over 4 billion years.

To put this story into concrete terms, approximately 100 million years ago, the area that is now Switzerland was still underwater as part of the Tethys Ocean. Over millions of years, marine sediments were slowly deposited on the seabed, gradually forming a mosaic of different rocks.

Around 30 million years ago, this ocean gradually disappeared, giving way to another process: the continental plates of Africa and Europe collided, and over a long period, the Alps emerged around 20 million years ago.

Since then, the Earth has undergone significant climatic changes. Around 100,000 years ago, the last great ice age began. Massive glaciers covered most of Switzerland, with only the highest peaks, including the Matterhorn, barely rising above them. The Matterhorn owes its distinctive pyramidal shape to the glaciers, which have polished the rocks over tens of thousands of years.

Gletschertöpfe, Gletschergarten Zermatt

Almost 90,000 years later, these glaciers had largely melted away. It was only between 1500 and 1800, during the Little Ice Age, that they again reached a greater extent. Before Roman times and until the end of the Middle Ages, glaciers only existed above 3,500 to 4,000 metres.

It’s a fact that change is happening much more quickly today. Since 1800, the population of Switzerland (and the world) has grown very rapidly, as has the use of the Alpine regions. Until the 20th century, industrialisation and other uses of the Alpine region were relatively low. Since 1900, use and colonisation have become increasingly intensive.

As a result, natural phenomena have become increasingly frequent sources of human tragedies. But who can still bear witness to the Flims landslide (Flimser Felzsturz), which occurred around 10,000 years ago, the tsunami (the so-called Tauredunum) on Lake Geneva caused by the collapse of a mountain in 563 AD? The earthquake in Basel in 1356, or the multiple disasters that occurred in Vals (die Lawinechronik), in the Grisons? It’s only nature that witnessed them.

Anyone who visits the Gornergrat (3,089 m), the Jungfraujoch (3,463 m), the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise (3,883 m) or the Aiguille du Midi (3,842 m) will enjoy the moment, the view, the panorama and the hikes.

However, it is also worth visiting the information rooms and museums. They not only offer glimpses of technological prowess but, above all, put nature at the centre.

The Trockener Steg

Gornergrat

Conclusion

This insight is essential not only for the perspective and context of the Earth’s development but also for the Alps in particular. It shows that nature, and therefore the Earth, is constantly changing and in motion and will remain so. The question, then, is how humanity is coping with this.

Today, The Alps are a fabulous open-air natural history museum, partly recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The glacier gardens of Dossen, near Zermatt or in Lucerne, the slopes and glaciers of the Gornergrat, or the Matterhorn do not have this status, but it is merely a human qualification.

It in no way diminishes the grandeur of nature. There’s a Dutch proverb: ‘The sea gives, and the sea takes away’. The same applies to the Alps: the mountain gives, the mountain takes, in the past, present and future.

The Gletschergarten near Zermatt

Gornergrat

The Bernhard von Aosta Chapel

The Alpine Garden

Belle van Zuylen or Isabelle de Charrière in the Netherlands and Switzerland

Belle van Zuylen (1740-1805) is known abroad and especially in Switzerland by the name Isabelle de Charrière. Her birthplace, or castle of birth, was Slot Zuylen in the village of Zuilen, today Oud-Zuilen in the municipality of Stichtse Vecht (province of Utrecht).

As the name suggests, the castle is located on the Vecht. At the time of Belle, this river was a trade route between Utrecht, Amsterdam, and the Zuiderzee. The castle’s origins date back to the 12th century.

The Vecht

Initially, it was a motte, a fortified tower. The strategic location on the Vecht, in the powerful bishopric of Utrecht at the time, was a source of income through tolls.

Over the centuries, the complex was continuously expanded and adapted to new residential uses and new styles of the day. The last major renovation took place in the 19th century.

Belle was the daughter of Diederik Jacob Tuyll van Serooskerken (1707-1776) and Jacoba Helena de Vicq (1724-1768).

She married Charles-Emmanuel de Charrère de Penthaz (1735-1808) in 1771, residing at the manoir Le Pontet in Colombier, in the French-speaking Prussian principality of Neuchâtel. He was the French-speaking house teacher of her eldest brother Willem (1743-1839). Belle moved to Colombier and from then on called herself Isabelle de Charrière.

The desk of Belle in Zuylen Castle

As was common at the time (and until the 20th century), the aristocracy was bilingual (or trilingual): the mother tongue, French, and sometimes Latin. Belle is best known for her literary legacy: correspondence, literature, plays, and various other writings in French.

She lived and wrote in Colombier from 1771 onwards. In both countries, the Netherlands and Switzerland (particularly the canton of Neuchâtel), her legacy is part of the cultural heritage or patrimoine.

The Netherlands knows the museum in Zuylen Castle and the Belle van Zuylen / Isabelle de Charrière Society, while the University of Neuchâtel (and the University of Lausanne) and the Public and University Library of Neuchâtel pay attention to her life and works, among others with 1 530 letters out of a collection of around 2 600 letters and her writings.

In September 2025, a detailed article about Isabelle’s life in Switzerland and particularly in Colombier will appear in the Nouvelle Revue neuchâteloise. The Swiss Spectator will contribute to her life at Zuylen Castle and in the Netherlands. In this way, the Dutch and Swiss life paths of this woman of the Enlightenment will be highlighted. Belle alias Isabelle perfectly symbolizes this era.

Switzerland, with its many immigrants and visitors from England, Russia, Germany, and France, its societies, export networks, and emerging industries at the time, is often a forgotten hub of the Enlightenment.

Lord Byron, Edward Gibbon, Madame de Staël, Rousseau, Voltaire are just a few names from the 18th and 19th centuries, just as Basel was the intellectual, humanist, and printing and publishing center in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Literature: K. Verboeket, Slot Zuylen, Oud-Zuilen, Amsterdam, 2003; K. van Strien, Belle van Zuylen. Een leven in Holland, Soesterberg, 2019; J. Bujard et autres, ‘Le Manoir du Pontet à Colombier’, in la Nouvelle Revue neuchâteloise, Hiver 2002, No 76).

Impressions of Slot Zuylen

Museum Slot Zuylen