Corfu’s a good place to start in any guide to the Ionian islands; Kerkyra is the Greek name and it’s the second largest in this chain of beautiful locations. The ‘capital’ of the island is also called Corfu and it administers three smaller islands called Ereikoussa, Mathraki and Othonoi. Most Europeans recognise it as a holiday resort these days but it has an interesting history which integrates substantially with Greece.
Corfu Map
Some scholars have argued that Corfu is the island of Scheria which Homer mentioned in his Odyssey. If you’d like to follow that train of though, this means the first mention of the island occurs in about 1200BC. More concrete evidence suggests that Corinthian settlers were here from about 730BC. The Corinthians who settled here were independent and this resulted in the occasional squabble with the home city of Corinth.
Alliances with mainland cities such as Athens came and went, as did quarrels with Spartans, Periander of Corinth and the Illyrians and by 229BC it was under Roman control and by 148BC it was part of Macedonia under Roman control. When the Roman Empire began to break up in the third century AD, Corfu was aligned with the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire).
The attraction of Corfu as a possession is obvious; aside from it’s fertile land and pleasant climate, it’s was strategically important as an early naval base and an ocean-going trading route. Despite this, it existed unmolested for most of the rest of the first millenium, not coming under attack again until early in the second millenium when the Normans (1081 – 1085) and Sicilians (1147 – 1154) began to take an interest. Genoese privateers (1197 – 1207) were then followed by Venetians (1207 – 1214) and Greeks (1214 – 1267) before it passed into the hands of the French House of Anjou. In 1386 it offered itself to the powerful Venetians in the hope they would offer a measure of protection and stability. From 1401 until 1797, this remained the status quo.
Part Two follows…..