The brigade was based in the eastern half of the Italian province of South Tyrol, with its headquarters in the city of Brixen.

The brigade was disbanded in 2002, however the name and traditions were transferred to the newly raised Division "Tridentina", a deployable military headquarters of the Italian Army.

The brigade was tasked with defending the Puster Valley, ensuring that invading Warsaw Pact troops would be unable to cut the vital supply line over the Brenner Pass.

To aid in the defense of the valley part of the pre-WWII fortifications of the Alpine Wall were reactivated and upgraded.

With 1975 Italian Army reform the regimental level was abolished and battalions came under direct command of multi-arms brigades.

At the same time the army reduced and realigned its forces and therefore the Tridentina saw some changes to its composition: the 6th Alpini Regiment, 2nd Mountain Artillery Regiment, and Mountain Artillery Group "Verona" were disbanded, while the brigade headquarters and the signal company were merged to form the Command and Signal Unit "Tridentina".

An anti-tank company was raised, the Light Aircraft Unit "Tridentina" was transferred to the newly formed 4th Army Light Aviation Regiment "Altair" of the 4th Army Corps, the Services Grouping "Tridentina" was reorganized as a logistic battalion, and the Alpini Battalion "Bolzano" was reduced to reserve unit.

In the more likely case the Soviet and Hungarian divisions would invade Austria and march through Southern Styria and through the Drava valley in Carinthia the alpine brigades would have been the first front line units of the Italian Army.

Connected by a low pass to the Drava valley, the Puster valley ends near Brixen, and a Soviet breakthrough there would have cut the important line of communication over the Brenner Pass between the Italian Army and NATO's Central Army Group in Southern Germany.

In the area of operation of the Tridentina the task of maintaining and manning the fortifications fell to the Alpini Battalion "Val Brenta": As the fortifications manned by the 264th Alpini Company were in the area of operation of the Alpine Brigade "Cadore" information about the 264th Company can be found at the Cadore's article.

On 23 August 1986 the "Val Brenta", with the exception of the 262nd Alpini Company, was disbanded and the bunkers stripped of their equipment.