The St. Bernard Passes
St. Bernard Passes, two passes in the Alps near Mont Blanc. Great St. Bernard Pass, 8,100 feet (2,469 m) above sea level, lies east of Mont Blanc on the Italian-Swiss border. Little St. Bernard, at 7,178 feet (2,188 m), is on the French-Italian border south of the peak. The two passes are about 20 miles (32 km) apart. Both are crossed by highways.
The passes were known to the Romans and Gauls well before the time of Christ. In the 11th century, Saint Bernard of Menthon established a hospice on each pass to aid travelers. Augustinian monks still operate the hospice on the Great St. Bernard Pass, where the famed St. Bernard dogs were used to locate stranded travelers.
In 1800 Napoleon crossed Great St. Bernard in his invasion of Italy. Little St. Bernard is believed by some historians to be the pass used by Hannibal when he invaded Italy in 218 B.C. The passes have lost much of their importance since the opening of the Great St. Bernard Tunnel (1964) and the Mont Blanc Tunnel (1965).