Beginning in 1542, when Pope Paul III created the Holy Office of the Inquisition, the flight of Protestant refugees from various Italian city-states swelled from a trickle to a flood, joining the flow of emigrants headed northward towards those cities and territories where Protestant ideas prevailed. During their journey through the Alps, however, some of these émigrés interrupted their journey in Valtellina and the nearby valley dominated by the small but lively city of Chiavenna. This was a geographically and politically liminal location; these territories had once been subject to the dominion of the dukes of Milan, but from 1512 had become part of the Three Leagues of Graubünden or Grisons (TreLeghe Grigie), most of whose inhabitants in the following decades embraced the new religion. In contrast Valtellina, while falling under the political authority of the Three Leagues, remained in large part Catholic. All the same, it was the only territory in the Italian-speaking lands where Protestants were allowed a degree of religious freedom. Establishing themselves in what was culturally a borderline zone, the exiles retained their links to the traditions of their place of origin, spoke their own language and retained the hope of returning, even if only temporarily, to their homeland. It was from here that they also departed for a new and more distant exile after 1620.