The Triangular Fortress

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In 1386 the Venetian republic successfully negotiated the purchase of Corfu, and with it Butrint as an eastern bulwark on the mainland. Venice’s command of the Mediterranean was built on its trade, and in this the Republic relied heavily on its powerful fleet. In order to secure their maritime trading routes between the Adriatic and Aegean Seas, and with one eye on the increasingly powerful and aggressive Ottoman Empire, the Venetians embarked upon campaigns of refortifying coastal castles in their colonial toeholds in Greece. Butrint, as the northern-most of a tight group of Ionian coastal fortifications, was no exception to this scheme.

The most substantial defensive work outside the old fortifications of Butrint, and the most prominent testament to Venetian occupation, is the imposing Triangular Fortress on the bank of the Vivari Channel. Built sometime after 1490, the fort principally served to protect Butrint’s valuable fisheries; however, the fort’s defences span the technologies of arrows and gunpowder. Based on an uncommon design, with only few equivalents throughout medieval Europe, its form may in part have been dictated by the shape of the island upon which it was constructed.

Initially comprising a simple irregular triangular form with firing loops at ground and parapet levels, the fort originally contained a few modest structures. Situated within the confluence of the Pavllas River and the Vivari Channel it was entirely surrounded by water. The principal access was, and still is today, through a door in the south face, which replaced a smaller (now blocked), arched entrance to its immediate west, with a (also blocked) postern on the channel side. The settlement that accompanied and huddled around the fortress, leaving signatures detected in recent geophysical scans of the fort’s environs, was apparently divided into distinct allotments licensed to different families.

Round towers accessible at both ground and parapet level were added to each of the three corners after 1572, along with a series of internal vaulted rooms on the west flank carrying an artillery platform above to protect the approach from the Vivari Channel: a relief of the head of the Lion of St Mark, the symbol of Venice, decorates a keystone at the entrance to one of the rooms. The vaulted rooms were probably used as gunpowder magazines, workshops, stores and – perhaps – cells.

Venice fought numerous bitter and costly wars with the Ottoman Empire and several events of loss and recapture of the Triangular Fortress are documented in the 17th century. A detailed military survey map dated to c. 1716 may reflect this initiative and shows the fort with a massive earthen ravelin (cutting-edge fortification technology for the age of cannon), on the south side, a western outwork, a barrack block and two other extra-mural structures between the fort and the channel. The fort remained at the centre of Venice’s precarious foothold in Butrint almost until the close of the 18th century.