strategic purposes, was well protected by the surrounding mountainous and could block the entrance to the Eisack Valley. Work began on June 17, 1833, and the Franzensfeste Fortress was inaugurated by Franz' successor Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria on August 18, 1838. The construction of the fortress and later of the Brenner railway, helped thousands of workers who found accommodation in Franzensfeste contributing to the development and growth of the village. In 1867 with the opening of a station on the Brenner Railway, Franzensfeste consolidated its role as a transport hub not only on the north-south direction, but also with the eastern branch-off into the Puster Valley (the Puster Valley Railway) to Carinthia and the Austrian Southern Railway line at Maribor in Styria, opened in 1871. The Franzensfeste Fortress, however, lost its strategic importance with the signing of the Triple Alliance military agreement by Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Kingdom of Italy in 1882. The fortifications were transformed into a military ammunition depot, which kept even when was transferred to Italy according to the 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain. In 1939 began the construction of the hydroelectric basin for the power plant in Brixen made necessary for the electrification of the railway; the work was completed the following year and the village of Unterau was flooded. Franzensfeste in 1940 was elevated to municipality, became an important railway junction and the infrastructure for the maintenance of the locomotives and housing the staff were built. Until the 1990s Franzensfeste was an important customs goods-station for cattle, but with the entry of Austria in the European Community has lost importance. In the summer of 2008 the fortress of Franzensfeste was opened to the public for the first time as one of the locations of Manifesta 7, the European Biennial of Contemporary art. In 2009 the location hosted the so-called "Landesausstellung", an event remembering the Bicentenaire of the Tyrolean riots in 1809. Coat-of-arms The emblem of Franzensfeste consists of an argent inverted upsilon symbolizing the roads to the village. The gules area, on top left, symbolizes the rock; the azure, top right, the lake and the vert the meadows. The emblem was adopted in 1968. Society Linguistic distribution According to the 2011 census, 59.63% of the population speak German, 38.51% Italian and 1.86% Ladin as first language. References Bibliography Christoph Hackelsberger (1986). Die k.k. Franzensfeste: ein Monumentalwerk der Befestigungskunst des 19. Jahrhunderts. Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag. External