22 Albania and the Albanians
Alaric moved south, seeking food and land for his
people. His ultimate destination appears to have been
Africa. He sacked Capua and Nola on the way but failed
to take NAPLES. He reached Reggio Calabria on the coast,
but the Gothic fleet that was to carry him to Africa had
been lost. Turning north again, he died at nearby Cosenza
or Bruttium in late 410 and was reportedly buried with
his treasure in the Busento River.
Further reading: Marcel Brion, Alaric, the Goth,
trans. Frederick H. Martens (New York: R. M. McBride,
1930); Thomas S. Burns, Barbarians within the Gates
of Rome: A Study of Roman Military Policy and the
Barbarians, ca. 375–425 A.D. (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1994); Colin D. Gordon, The Age
of Attila: Fifth Century Byzantium and the Barbarians
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960); Her-
wig Wolfram, History of the Goths, trans. Thomas J.
Dunlap (1979; reprint, Berkeley: University of Califor-
nia Press, 1988).
Albania and the Albanians They are a nation of
Thracian and Illyrian origin. The Albanians were ruled in
the Middle Ages periodically by the BYZANTINESor others
from the sixth to the 14th century, including the BULGARS
from the ninth and 10th centuries, before succumbing to
the Turks in 1479. The Fourth Crusade in 1203–04
allowed the creation of the independent Albanian states
of Scuttari (Shkoder) and DURAZZOor Durrës. Durazzo
was at the beginning point of the route across the
Balkans, the old Via Egnatia. It connected the Adriatic
Sea with CONSTANTINOPLE.CHARLES OF ANJOU pro-
claimed himself king of Albania in 1272. This state con-
tinued until 1380 under the name of the Duchy of
Durazzo. The Albanians were under Serbian control
between 1345 and 1350 and Venetian authority between
1392 and 1479.
The conversion to Christianity of the Albanians after
the Slav invasions of the sixth and seventh centuries was
the work of missionaries sent from Rome and Con-
stantinople. The Albanian Church was divided between
the two rites, Latin and Greek. The north remained
Roman while the south recognized the jurisdiction of
Constantinople. At Ottoman occupation, delayed by the
resistance of SCANDERBERG(1444–68), the Catholic north
and the Orthodox south resisted Islamization, but the
center mostly converted to Islam.
Of all the medieval literature in Albanian, only
liturgical texts from 1462 and a lexicon of Albanian
from 1497 by a German pilgrim have survived. They
used the Latin alphabet. Art of Byzantine style existed in
Albania from the end of the ninth century. Its finest
churches were covered with mosaics, frescoes, and icons
and date from the prosperous period of the 11th and
12th centuries. The influence of Dalmatian and Vene-
tian artists and craftsmen arrived with the settlement of
the Dominicans and Franciscans in the towns bordering
the Adriatic.
Further reading: Alain Ducellier, “Albania, Serbia
and Bulgaria,” in The New Cambridge Medieval History,
Vol. V, c. 1198–c. 1300,ed. David Abulafia (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999), 779–795; Donald
Nicol, The Despotate of Epiros, 1267–1479: A Contribution
to the History of Greece in the Middle Ages(Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1984); Ramadan Marmul-
laku, Albania and the Albanians,trans. Margot and Bosko
Milosavljevic (London: C. Hurst, 1975); Stefanaq Pollo,
The History of Albania: From Its Origins to the Present Day,
trans. G. Wiseman and G. Hole (London: Routledge and
K. Paul, 1981).Alberti, Leon Battista (1404–1472)Italian Renais-
sance writer, humanist, architect
Alberti was born in Genoa on February 14, 1404, the ille-
gitimate son of an exiled Florentine merchant banker,
Lorenzo Alberti. He received a humanist education at the
universities of PADUAand BOLOGNAand obtained a doc-
torate in canon law in 1428. He then went to Rome and
worked in the papal chancery as an abbreviator. A papal
dispensation allowed him to take holy orders despite his
illegitimacy. His early writing was in a Latin style, but heThe facade of Sant’Andrea in Mantua, Italy, designed by Leon
Battista Alberti in 1470 (Alinari / Art Resource)