Ionian Islands in Venetian hands since 1238. The islands thus became the only part of the Greek-speaking world to escape Ottoman rule, which gave them both a unity and an importance in Greek history they would otherwise not have had. Corfu was the only Greek island never conquered by the Turks. Under Venetian rule, many of the upper classes spoke Italian (or Venetian in some cases) and converted to Roman Catholicism, but the majority remained Greek ethnically, linguistically, and religiously. In the 18th century, a Greek national independence movement began to emerge, and the free status of the Ionian islands made them
Proti Island Proti Island Proti Island of Messenia (Πρώτη Μεσσηνίας) is an island in the Ionian Sea, on the west coast of the Peloponnese; it is counted as one of the Ionian Islands, though administratively, it is part of the municipality of Gargalianoi, in the regional unit of Messenia. The 2001 census reported a population of four inhabitants. The name of the island derives from the ancient sea god Proteus, son of Poseidon. The island was mentioned by ancient writers. The first reference of the island was in the history of Thukydides who refers that in 426 B.C. the Athenian fleet sailed