The fisheries and the castles

The main importance of Butrint for the Venetians was the strategic advantage of having an outpost on the mainland and the financial value of the fisheries. These two interests became combined and eventually inextricably linked.

The office of castellan of Butrint was reserved for Corfiot citizens and the appointment partly funded by the revenue from the fisheries. Following normal practice in Venetian dominions, the collection of these taxes was farmed out to private individuals. By the late sixteenth century, when the position of castellan seems no longer to have been filled, the contractor of the fishery revenues took on the responsibility for defence, an arrangement that continued into the eighteenth century.

In order to attract private capital for the running of Butrint, the Venetian Republic granted land there to Corfiot nobles. Cristoforo Condocali had distinguished himself during the war against the Ottomans at Lepanto in 1570-71 and in his position as contractor of the fishery at Butrint. In his latter role he was involved in protecting the revenues of the fisheries, repulsing Turkish attacks (which had succeeded in capturing the fishery on several occasions) and winning over the local populace to the Venetian side. For this he was rewarded with the title of cavaliere (knight) and a grant of land at Butrint. He chose land at Ksamili and claimed, in addition, five per cent of the revenues of the fisheries.

In this period the use of the old city appears to have been reduced and the acropolis castle abandoned. The focus of defence instead moved first to a single, as yet unidentified, tower near the fishery, later to the Triangular Fortress at the mouth of the Pavllas River. While there was some arable cultivation by a tenant of Condocali, or his successors, the mountain pastures were exploited by the local villagers, who were Ottoman subjects.

Despite the fisheries representing a large part of the income of the Venetian treasury on Corfu, the frequent challenges to Venetian authority between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries meant that the fisheries were often neglected and it became an undesirable place to manage.