Albania Veneta
Encyclopedia
Dalmatia
Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
that existed from 1420 to 1797. It originally covered the coastal area of what is now northern Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
and the coast of Montenegro
Montenegro
Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...
, but the Albanian and southern Montenegrin parts were lost to the Ottomans
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
in 1571.
Name and geography
The word "Venetian" in the name of the region was used to differentiate the area from the OttomanOttoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
, an area stretching from Kosovo
Kosovo
Kosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...
to southern Albania.
Venetian Albania were Venetian
Republic of Venice
The Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in...
possessions that stretched from the southern borders of the Republic of Ragusa
Republic of Ragusa
The Republic of Ragusa or Republic of Dubrovnik was a maritime republic centered on the city of Dubrovnik in Dalmatia , that existed from 1358 to 1808...
to Durrës
Durrës
Durrës is the second largest city of Albania located on the central Albanian coast, about west of the capital Tirana. It is one of the most ancient and economically important cities of Albania. Durres is situated at one of the narrower points of the Adriatic Sea, opposite the Italian ports of Bari...
in coastal Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
. The Venetian territories usually reached only 20 km from the Adriatic Sea
Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan peninsula, and the system of the Apennine Mountains from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges...
. After 1573 the southern limit was moved to the village of Kufin near Budva
Budva
Budva is a coastal town in Montenegro. It has around 15,000 inhabitants, and it is the centre of municipality...
, because of the Ottoman conquests of Bar
Bar, Montenegro
Bar is a coastal town in Montenegro. It has a population of 17,727...
, Ulcinj
Ulcinj
Ulcinj is a coastal resort town and municipality in Montenegro. The town of Ulcinj has a population of 10,828 of which the majority are Albanians...
, Shkodër
Shkodër
Shkodër , is a city located on Lake of Shkoder in northwestern Albania in the District of Shkodër, of which it is the capital. It is one of the oldest and most historic towns in Albania, as well as an important cultural and economic centre. Shkodër's estimated population is 90,000; if the...
, and Durrës
Durrës
Durrës is the second largest city of Albania located on the central Albanian coast, about west of the capital Tirana. It is one of the most ancient and economically important cities of Albania. Durres is situated at one of the narrower points of the Adriatic Sea, opposite the Italian ports of Bari...
. The Venetian territory was then centered around the area of the Bay of Kotor
Bay of Kotor
The Bay of Kotor in south-western Montenegro is a winding bay on the Adriatic Sea. The bay, sometimes called Europe's southernmost fjord, is in fact a submerged river canyon of the disintegrated Bokelj River which used to run from the high mountain plateaus of Mount Orjen...
, and included the towns of Kotor
Kotor
Kotor is a coastal city in Montenegro. It is located in a secluded part of the Gulf of Kotor. The city has a population of 13,510 and is the administrative center of the municipality....
, Risan
Risan
Risan is a town in the Bay of Kotor, Montenegro...
, Perast
Perast
Perast is an old town in Bay of Kotor, Montenegro. It is situated a few kilometres northwest of Kotor.- Geography :...
, Tivat
Tivat
Tivat is a coastal town in southwest Montenegro, located in the Bay of Kotor...
, Herceg Novi
Herceg Novi
Herceg Novi is a coastal town in Montenegro located at the entrance to the Bay of Kotor and at the foot of Mount Orjen. It is the administrative center of the Herceg Novi Municipality with around 33,000 inhabitants...
, Budva
Budva
Budva is a coastal town in Montenegro. It has around 15,000 inhabitants, and it is the centre of municipality...
, and Sutomore
Sutomore
Sutomore is a small coastal town in Bar Municipality, Montenegro. A 2003 census put the population at 1,827.-History:...
.
History
VeniceVenice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
periodically controlled the small southern Dalmatian villages around in the 10th century, but did not permanently assume control until 1420. The Venetians assimilated the Dalmatian language
Dalmatian language
Dalmatian was a Romance language spoken in the Dalmatia region of Croatia, and as far south as Kotor in Montenegro. The name refers to a pre-Roman tribe of the Illyrian linguistic group, Dalmatae...
into the Venetian dialect quickly. The Venetian territories around Kotor lasted from 1420 to 1797 and were called Venetian Albania, a province of the Venetian Republic.
In the early years of the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
the territories under Venetian control included areas from actual coastal Montenegro to northern Albania until Durrës
Durrës
Durrës is the second largest city of Albania located on the central Albanian coast, about west of the capital Tirana. It is one of the most ancient and economically important cities of Albania. Durres is situated at one of the narrower points of the Adriatic Sea, opposite the Italian ports of Bari...
: Venetians retained this city after a siege by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II
Mehmed II
Mehmed II , was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire for a short time from 1444 to September 1446, and later from...
in 1466 but it fell to Ottoman forces in 1501.
In those years Venetian Albania was relatively rich (by Balkan standards) and the area around the city of Cattaro enjoyed a huge cultural and artistic development.
When the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
started to conquer the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
in 15th century, the population of Christian Slavs in Dalmatia
Dalmatia
Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
increased greatly. As a consequence of this, by the end of 17th century the Romance speaking population of the historical Venetian Albania was a minority, according to Oscar Randi in his book Dalmazia etnica, incontri e fusioni.
After the French Republic conquered and dissolved the Venetian Republic in 1797, the area of Venetian Albania became part of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy
Kingdom of Italy (Napoleonic)
The Kingdom of Italy was a state founded in Northern Italy by Napoleon, fully influenced by revolutionary France, that ended with his defeat and fall.-Constitutional statutes:...
, and then in 1809 it was included in the French Illyrian Provinces
Illyrian provinces
The Illyrian Provinces was an autonomous province of the Napoleonic French Empire on the north and east coasts of the Adriatic Sea between 1809 and 1816. Its capital was established at Laybach...
, and then the Illyrian Provinces
Illyrian provinces
The Illyrian Provinces was an autonomous province of the Napoleonic French Empire on the north and east coasts of the Adriatic Sea between 1809 and 1816. Its capital was established at Laybach...
. In 1814 it was included in the Austrian Empire
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...
.
Perast
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Montenegro
Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...
town of Perast
Perast
Perast is an old town in Bay of Kotor, Montenegro. It is situated a few kilometres northwest of Kotor.- Geography :...
(Пераст), once part of Venetian Albania, was at its peak in the 18th century, when it had as many as four active shipyards, a standing fleet of around a hundred ships, and 1,643 residents. At that time a number of architecturally significant buildings were constructed in this fortified town. Many ornate baroque palaces and houses were decorated the town of Perast, built in the Ventian style. Citizens of Perast (the population was around 1,600 at the time) enjoyed privileges from the Venetian Republic. They were allowed to trade with large ships and to sell goods without tax on the Venetian market, which created considerable income for the town.
At the end of 18th century, the town accumulated enough wealth that it managed to collect 50,000 gold coins (about 200kg of gold) in order to pay the noted Venetian constructor Giuseppe Beati to build them the highest campanile
Campanile
Campanile is an Italian word meaning "bell tower" . The term applies to bell towers which are either part of a larger building or free-standing, although in American English, the latter meaning has become prevalent.The most famous campanile is probably the Leaning Tower of Pisa...
(55m) on the eastern coast of the Adriatic. Right in front of Perast there are two small islands. The St George island with its small church from the 12th century and the artificial island Our Lady of Skrpjela with a legend surrounding it. On the reef whose top was 1 m above the surface of the water, people from Perast had been throwing rocks and sinking old shipwrecks for 200 years, thus creating a plateau of 3,030 square meters, which they then built a church on. The church received donations for centuries and now it is a type of gallery and treasury of various objects. Beside 68 oil on canvas works by Tripo Cocolia (a 17th century baroque painter from the eastern Mediterranean coast), on the church walls there are 2,500 golden and silver votive tablets which people from the Kotor Bay area donated to the church, in order to avoid various human disasters. Perast had the privilege to use the war-flag of the Venetian Navy in peacetime (called the fedelissma Gonfaloniera by the citizens).
The sailors of Perast participated in the last battle of the Venetian navy, fought in Venice in 1797. On 12 May of that year, the Republic of Venice was annexed, but a few places in Venetian Albania, being far to the south across the Adriatic, did not surrender for several months afterwards. Perast was the last place in the Republic to surrender. On August 23 1797, the citizens of Perast gathered to bury the flag of the Republic under the altar of the cathedral, to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. Before the kneeling crowd Captain Giuseppe Viscovich
Giuseppe Viscovich
Giuseppe Viscovich, also Josip Visković, was a Venetian count. He was the Captain of the town of Perast , the last territory of the Republic of Venice to surrender to France....
, commander of the town, delivered an emotional speech, known as the Discorso de Perasto.
Population
Albanians lived in the south of the Venetian Albania around UlcinjUlcinj
Ulcinj is a coastal resort town and municipality in Montenegro. The town of Ulcinj has a population of 10,828 of which the majority are Albanians...
and Durrës
Durrës
Durrës is the second largest city of Albania located on the central Albanian coast, about west of the capital Tirana. It is one of the most ancient and economically important cities of Albania. Durres is situated at one of the narrower points of the Adriatic Sea, opposite the Italian ports of Bari...
. The area around Kotor
Kotor
Kotor is a coastal city in Montenegro. It is located in a secluded part of the Gulf of Kotor. The city has a population of 13,510 and is the administrative center of the municipality....
was populated by Croats
Croats
Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...
and Romance-speakers and was fully Catholic. Many klans from Albania Veneta had immigrated to Italy, Korfu and Constantinople: Klanlarets in Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
is an example of Venetian Albanians today.
According to the Italian historian Luigi Paulucci the population of the Venetian Albania, during the centuries of the Venetian Republic, was mainly Venetian
Venetian language
Venetian or Venetan is a Romance language spoken as a native language by over two million people, mostly in the Veneto region of Italy, where of five million inhabitants almost all can understand it. It is sometimes spoken and often well understood outside Veneto, in Trentino, Friuli, Venezia...
speaking in the urban areas (Kotor, Perast, Budva, ecc..) around the Bay of Kotor
Bay of Kotor
The Bay of Kotor in south-western Montenegro is a winding bay on the Adriatic Sea. The bay, sometimes called Europe's southernmost fjord, is in fact a submerged river canyon of the disintegrated Bokelj River which used to run from the high mountain plateaus of Mount Orjen...
. But in the inland areas more than half of the population was Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...
-speaking, after the beginning of the eighteenth century. Furthermore, near the border with Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
there were big communities of Albanian speaking people: Ulcinj
Ulcinj
Ulcinj is a coastal resort town and municipality in Montenegro. The town of Ulcinj has a population of 10,828 of which the majority are Albanians...
was half Albanian, one quarter Venetian and one quarter Slav speaking.
There have been notable Italian writers in the 15th to the 18th century who originated from Venetian Albania, notably Giovanni Bona Boliris
Giovanni Bona Boliris
Giovanni Bona de Boliris was a humanist poet and writer, who wrote in Latin and Italian.-Life:Boliris was born in Cattaro, in Albania Veneta Giovanni Bona de Boliris (c.1520 – c.1572) was a humanist poet and writer, who wrote in Latin and Italian.-Life:Boliris was born in Cattaro, in Albania...
, Cristoforo Ivanovich and Ludovico Pasquali
Ludovico Pasquali
Ludovico Pasquali was an Italian author, from Cattaro in the Albania Veneta .-Life:...
.