Ottoman Butrint

By the beginning of the 15th century the Ottoman Empire had conquered almost all of Albania, installing a provincial governor in Gjirokastra.

Despite the continued disputes with the Venetians, Butrint lay, in fact, on the edge of the Ottoman Empire often acting as a port and access to the Ionian. So, during periods of war, the Turks would occupy Butrint and use it as a base of operations against Corfu.

The greatest of these sieges were in 1537, when Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, camped at Butrint, lay siege to Corfu for two weeks, building, so it is said, a bridge of boats across the Straits.

In 1797 the extravagant Ali Pasha of Tepelena – the vezir nicknamed by Byron ‘The Ottoman Napoleon’ – brought Butrint under his control. Though the entrance to Butrint appears to have been fortified, the city now primarily functioned as a source of good fishing and hunting, not the least for the vezir himself and his international guests.