Sacro macello means “ crowned butchery ” in Italian.

It is the name given to a tragic episode (July 18th and 19th 1620) in the province of the Valteline, in Lombardy (in Italian: Valtellina , in German Veltlin ). It is a conflict which finds its roots in at the same time religious oppositions (Catholique S and Protesting S) and Géopolitique S; the alpine collars of the Grisons are very coveted, because of their strategic importance: collars of Gavia towards the province of Brescia, Umbrail towards the Grison valley of Müstair, from Stelvio towards the Tyrol of the South and Foscagno towards Livigno .
These collars constitute the single point of passage between the Austria and the Spanish possessions of the North of Italy which belongs both to the Habsbourg. The control of the collars is thus decisive because the mobility of the imperial troops between the faces depends on it.

Valteline, with catholic majority, located at the South of the Alps, in the north of the plain of the Po does not support any more the Protestant domination. It is in this context that into 1620 is held the episode known as of “Sacro Macello”, during which the catholics of Valteline, helped by the Spanish troops stationed with Milan, massacre, during two days, between 600 and 700 Protestants.

This event makes that the great powers decide to intervene in their turn, and the area changes hands on several occasions. The conflicts are then present in all Europe: War Thirty Year old.
Pasteur Jörg Jenatsch (1596-1639) fights for independence while being combined first of all to the French, whose troops, led by the Duc of Rohan, push back the Austrians out of Valteline. But when he discovers that France for keeping this territory under his cut, Jenatsch converts with Catholicism and is combined in Habsbourg. He will be assassinated in 1639, but, him which had escaped with the massacres of July 1620, nevertheless had achieved his goal: to keep Valteline in the bosom of the Grison Leagues.