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
Sazan Island of Vlorë, in the eastern Strait of Otranto separating Italy from Albania. It is also located at the informal junction line of the Adriatic and Ionian Sea inside the Mediterranean Sea, which is just to the south according to international scientific bodies. The island is composed of limestone rocks, which was formed during the Cretaceous period, while the eastern part is partially composed of terrigenic and cleistogenic deposits. It has four peaks, the highest standing at above sea level followed by two peaks in the center and , and the lowest with in the south of the island. Sazan has