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
Ionian Sea also narratives about other eponymic legendary figures; according to one version, "Ionius" was a son of "Adrias" (eponymic for the Adriatic Sea); according to another, "Ionius" was a son of "Dyrrhachus". When Dyrrhachus was attacked by his own brothers, Heracles, who was passing through the area, came to his aid, but in the fight the hero killed his ally's son by mistake. The body was cast into the water, and thereafter was called the Ionian Sea. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Ionian Sea as follows: From south to north in the west, then north to south