The claims of Italy in the Trentino include[58] the Bolzano district lying at the confluence of the Isarco and the Adige. This locality is peopled by 16,000 Germans and 4,000 Italians. Meran, the upper valleys Of the Adige and Isarco together with their affluents, Bressanone on the Isarco, and Bruneco on the Rienza likewise fall within the territory claimed by Italy. A return to the Italian fold of the small groups of Italians scattered between Salorno and Bolzano, between Bolzano and Meran and between Bruneco and Bressanone is shown in this manner to lie within the realm of possibility. As early as 774 Charlemagne’s division of the region between the kingdoms of Bavaria and Italy had implied recognition of linguistic variations. But the importance of maintaining German control over natural lines of access to southern seas determined his successors to award temporal rights in the southeastern Alps to bishops upon whose adherence to Germanic interests reliance could be placed. The bishopric of Trentino thus passed under the Teutonic sphere of influence. The present political union of the territory of the old see with the Austrian Empire is hence a relic of medieval German politics. Historically the Trentino’s connection with Italy rests on ancient foundations. At the height of Roman power Tridentium was an important city. It was situated in the tenth Italian region, known as Venetia et Histria. After the fall of the western Empire it was included in the Italian districts conquered by the Ostrogoths and Byzantines. Under the Lombards Trent became the capital of a dukedom. In the Romano-Germanic feudal period it was part of the kingdom of Italy constituted by Charles the Great, and later, of the Marches of Verona established by Otto I. Conrad II in 1027 turned the region over to religious ownership. From this date on it is known as the princely bishopric of Trent. The bishop-princes who ruled in the Trentino, however, were constantly at war with the feudal lords who had authority over the lands north and south of the Trentino. In the sixteenth century the court of Bernardo Clesio, one of the most famous of these religious rulers, was distinctly Italian in thought and customs. The Trentino bishopric was abolished in 1805 by Napoleon and the region then became part of the kingdom of Bavaria. From 1809 to 1814, however, the Trentino, together with a part of the upper Adige valley, was converted into an Italian administrative district under the name of Dipartimento dell’ Alto Adige. In 1815 the region was assigned to Austria together with Lombardo-Venetia and the Tyrol.