Venetian Albania

Post date: Sep 10, 2015 5:14:8 PM

You probably didn’t even know that that was a thing. I didn’t either.

But apparently, while being the northernmost port city in the Mediterranean Sea is very profitable, being at the end of a long, narrow sea like the Adriatic makes you susceptible to piracy. The coast of Albania has a large bay, called in Italian Le Bocche di Cattaro, or the Bay of Kotor. This bay was a place where many pirates could hide, so the Republic of Venice was very interested in having jurisdiction over the area. (Durant & Durant, 1935)

So in 1386, the serenissima started taking control of the area, and by 1392 the republic controlled the area marked on the map. (Durant & Durant, 1935)

This area, which contained the ports of Castelnuovo, Kotor, and Butrint, and the cities of Budva, Antivari, Ulcinj, Durres, and Vlora, was known as “Venetian Albania” (Distefano, 2011).

- Andrew Ray

Distefano, G. (2011). L'enciclopedia storica di Venezia. Venice, Italy: Supernova Edizioni srl.

Durant, W., & Durant, A. (1935). The story of civilization: The renaissance (Vol. 5). New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.

Platon, A. (2012 ). Venezia Montenegro Wikimedia Commons