Sterzing, with its sunny main street of which a most charming vista is got as one enters the town through the ancient gateway on the Brenner road, and shady arcades which remind one of the "unter den Lauben" of Meran, stands on the site of a Roman settlement, Vipitenum. It is situated at the junction of three beautiful valleys, the Ridnaun Thal, Pflersch Thal, Pfitscher Thal, in a broad basin-like depression, encircled by shapely mountain slopes, and on the right bank of the Eisack. Though nowadays possessing a population of less than 3000, Sterzing at once strikes one as having an air of importance and prosperity, hardly in keeping with its small size. Formerly, however, the town was an important mining centre, and the larger of its quaint and picturesque balconied and bay-windowed houses owe their origin to the wealthier inhabitants of the past. Marble quarrying and polishing is still carried on somewhat extensively, and doubtless helps to retain an air of commercial life and industry in the quaint old place.
Sterzing is wonderfully decorative and compact in general effect; and there are a surprising number of fine and interesting buildings to be seen in its narrow old-time streets. The Rathaus, with its striking bow windows, is of late Gothic architecture, and in it is a fine fifteenth-century altar-piece, and some interesting and well-executed wood carvings. This building, now used by the town officials and magistrates, was formerly doubtless a mansion of a wealthy merchant. In it is one of the best preserved specimens of a Gothic ceiling, dating from about the middle of the fifteenth century, that we have seen in Tyrol in any private house of similar size.
The church has been extensively, but on the whole well restored. It dates from the sixteenth century, and has a Gothic choir of note, and nave and aisles restored in the Rococo style, the ceiling paintings of which are by Adam Mölckh. The general effect of the interior is good, and the church has some interesting architectural details.
The decline of Sterzing is attributable to the same cause as that of many other townlets and villages upon the old post-roads, and the roads over the passes which have gradually become less and less used as railroads have multiplied. But, in the case of Sterzing, its gradual descent from the position of importance it once occupied, traces of which are found in the numerous fine houses still standing, was undoubtedly more owing to the exhaustion or abandonment of the mining industry than to the coming of the railway which so seriously affected the road traffic of the Brenner Pass.