crusade. Scanderbeg died fighting at Alessio in 1467. During his long war against the Turks he became a Christian, presumably a Catholic. At any rate, he was treated as such by the Popes.[1] He is said to have received the last Sacraments before his death; he is buried in the cathedral of Alessio.[2] From his time dates the connection between Albania and Italy, never since forgotten, of which we have heard much lately.
There are other cases of alliance between Italian princes and the valiant Albanian warriors. In the sixteenth century there was an Albanian regiment in the service of Naples. They fought for Spain, too. In short, as their own land was gradually lost to the Turks, the Christian Albanians formed companies of mercenaries at the service of any Christian prince, particularly at the service of those who were fighting against their old enemies. Then came the period of the refugees. Horribly persecuted by the Turks, they began to flee to lands where they could practise their religion under a Christian government. The region Chimara[3] in Albania has long been a centre of Catholicism there; already in the fifteenth century Chimara sent out a number of Catholic refugees. Many Albanian exiles fled to Cattaro and other Venetian possessions;
- ↑ Calixtus III (1455-1458) writes to him as a Pope would hardly write to a Moslem or schismatic; Pius II (1458-1464) and Paul II (1464-1471) both call him "mighty warrior of Christ." See the texts in Rodotà, "del Rito greco," iii, 23-24.
- ↑ Alessio (Lissus, Alise, near the coast, in the Gulf of Drin) has long been a centre of Catholicism in Albania. It is still a Catholic (Latin) bishopric. The classical Life of Scanderbeg is that of his countryman and contemporary, Marinus Barlettius, "de Vita moribus ac rebus præcipue aduersus Turcas gestis Georgii Castrioti clarissimi Epirotarum principis," Argentorati (Strassburg), 1537; Portuguese version by F. Dandrade (Lisbon, 1567); German version Frankfurt, 1577, Italian by P. Rocha, Venice, 1580. A good and amusing modern Life is A. Zoncada, "Scanderbeg, Storia albanese del sec. XV" (Milan, 2nd edition, 1882).
- ↑ Chimara (Italian Cimarra) is a town and region on the coast between Avlona and Delvinon, where are the Ἀκροκεραύνια mountains, Horace's "infames scopulos Acroceraunia" (Od. i, 3). In the eighteenth century Catholic Albanian monks from Sicily had a flourishing mission there. Most of the people seem to have been Byzantine Uniates. Joseph Schirò, born in 1690, an Albanian of Piana dei Greci (p. 165), student of the Greek College at Rome, then monk at Grottaferrata, finally Archbishop of Durazzo and Vic. Ap. of Chimara, worked here for twenty-four years. A report about the people of Chimara, sent by him to Propaganda in 1729, is printed in "Roma e l'Oriente," v (1912), 97-117; 159-166. See other reports in C. Karalevsky, "Documenti inediti," ii (Rome, 1911-1912). For Schiro's Life see "Roma e l'Oriente," v, 103.
