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 Academy and educational activities in establishing the high level of the Medical School influenced the Greek medical science as a whole. In particular, George Therianos (Prof of General and Comparative Anatomy and Experimental Physics) from the island of Zante (Zakynthos) met the Earl of Guilford in 1825 in England and was given the position of professor of the Academy's Medical School. Giovanni Carandino (Ioannis Karantinos), who had already learnt mathematics with Charles Dupin at the original Ionian Academy established by the French during their occupation of the Septinsular Republic (1807–1824), was sent by Lord Guilford to study at the École Polytechnique