Tre Cannoni

In the Ortler Alps in northern Italy is a minor summit called the Dreisprechenspitze: the ‘three-language peak’. For hundreds of years this tiny mountain was a tripoint — where Switzerland, Italy and the Austro-Hungarian empire met. (The languages then were German, Italian and Romansh, still an official language of that part of Switzerland.) Now, Austria is over 50 kilometres away by road, after the border was redrawn in Italy’s favour after the First World War.