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ITALIANS IN ALBANIA

History==

The territory of what is now Albania was fully conquered by the Romans in the century before Augustus. Roman colonists from the Italian peninsula settled in some cities and castra, like Dyrrachium (from where started the famous Via Egnatia that reached Constantinople) and Buthrotum. Later, with the definitive subdivision of the Roman Empire, Albania (a country fully latinised, according to historian ) went to the dependencies of Byzantium. Albania was successively invaded by the barbarians, some of whom created ephemeral lordships (end 6th century: Slavic, 619 AD: Avaric, later Serbian), while only on the coast survived the autochthonous population, mainly in Durrachium and surroundings that were linked by commerce to southern Italy.

From 917 to 1019 Albania was almost totally absorbed by the Bulgarian kingdom. In the XI century Albania returned under Byzantium, and began to undergo the military penetration of the southern Italy's Normans and subsequent kings of Sicily and Naples. Also was present the commercial presence of Venice, who took advantage of the fourth crusade (1204) to seize it, even if the feudal lords gave themselves to the despot of Epirus Michele Angelo Comneno. The centuries from the year 1000 to the Duecento and early Trecento were characterized by a consistent migration of Italians to Albania (mainly as merchants and military personnel but also as religious people).

Conquered in 1230 by the Vlach-Bulgarian tsar John Asjan II, shortly after Albania passed for the most part to the Serbian kings of the Rascia. The battle of Kosovo (1389) brought in Albania the Turks, who, first contained by the League of Albanian peoples created in 1444 by Giorgio Castriota, known as Scanderbeg, after his death (1467) conquered all Albania and maintained their rule on the country until the XIX century.

The Italian ruled enclaves in Albania==

A)Buthrotum (Butrinto in Italian):

It remained an outpost of the Byzantine empire fending off assaults from the Normans until 1204 when following the Fourth Crusade, the Byzantine Empire fragmented, Buthrotum falling to the breakaway Despotate of Epirus. In the following centuries, the area was a site of conflict between the Byzantines, the Angevins of southern Italy, and the Venetians, and the city changed hands many times. In 1267, Charles of Anjou took control of both Buthrotum and Corfu, leading to further restorations of the walls and the Great Basilica.

The dogal Republic of Venice purchased the area including Corfu from the Angevins in 1386; however, the Venetian merchants were principally interested in Corfu and Buthrotum once again declined.

Butrinto, a Venetian enclave in southern Albania

By 1572 the wars between Venice and the Ottoman Empire had left Buthrotum ruinous and at the order of Domenico Foscarini, the Venetian commander of Corfu, the administration of Buthrotum and its environs was shifted to a small triangular fortress associated with the extensive fish weirs. The area was lightly settled afterwards, occasionally being seized by the Ottoman Turks, in 1655 and 1718, before being recaptured by the Venetians. Its fisheries were a vital contributor to the supply of Corfu, and olive growing together with cattle and timber were the principal economic activities.

The Treaty of Campo Formio of 1797 split between France and Austria the territory of the Republic of Venice, which France had just occupied and abolished, and under article 5 of the treaty, Butrinto and the other former Venetian enclaves in Albania came under French sovereignty.

B)Dyrrachium (Durazzo in Italian): Dyrrachium was conquered from the Byzantines in February 1082 when Alexios I Komnenos was defeated by the Normans under Robert Guiscard and his son Bohemund in the Battle of Dyrrhachium. Byzantine control was restored a few years later, but the Normans under Bohemund returned to besiege it in 1107–08, and sacked it again in 1185 under King William II of Sicily. In 1205, after the Fourth Crusade, the city was transferred to the rule of the Republic of Venice, which formed the "Duchy of Durazzo". This Duchy was conquered in 1213. In 1257, Durrës was briefly occupied by the King of Sicily, Manfred of Hohenstaufen. It was re-occupied by the Despot of Epirus Michael II Komnenos Doukas until 1259, when the Despotate was defeated by the Byzantine Empire of Nicaea in the Battle of Pelagonia. In the 1270s, Durrës was again controlled by Epirus under Nikephoros I Komnenos Doukas, the son of Michael II, who in 1278 was forced to yield the city to Charles d' Anjou (Charles I of Sicily). In the early 14th century, the city was ruled by a coalition of Anjous, Hungarians, and Albanians of the Thopia family. In 1317 or 1318, the area was taken by the Serbs and remained under their rule until the 1350s. At that time the Popes, supported by the Anjous, increased their diplomatic and political activity in the area, by using the Latin bishops, including the archbishop of Durrës. The city had been a religious center of Catholicism after the Anjou were installed in Durrës. In 1272, a Catholic archbishop was installed, and until the mid-14th century there were both Catholic and Orthodox archbishops of Durrës.

Map of the coast in northern Durrës from Giuseppe Rosaccio in 1598

Two Irish pilgrims who visited Albania on their way to Jerusalem in 1322, reported that Durrës was "inhabited by Latins, Greeks, perfidious Jews and barbaric Albanians".

C) Venetian Albania

The Venetian territories around Cattaro in actual Montenegro lasted from 1420 to 1797 and were called Venetian Albania, a province of the Venetian Republic.

Albania veneta in 1448, when reached the northern Albania coast

In the early years of the Renaissance the territories under Venetian control included areas from actual coastal Montenegro to northern Albania until Durrës. In northern Albania, the siege of Shkodra in 1478–1479 culminated in the Treaty of Constantinople. Venetians retained Durrës – that they called "Durazzo" – after a huge siege by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II in 1466, but it fell to Ottoman forces in 1501.