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Old Town PIRAN History

In the pre-Roman era, the hills in the Piran area were inhabited by Illyrian Histri tribes who were farmers, hunters and fishermen. They were also pirates who disrupted Roman trade in the northern Adriatic.

The Piran peninsula was incorporated into the Roman Empire in 178 and 177 BC and settled in the following years with rural homes.

The decline of the Roman Empire, from the 5th century AD onward, and incursions by the Avars and Slavs at the end of the 6th century, prompted the Roman population to withdraw into easily defensible locations such as islands or peninsulas. This started local urbanisation and by the 7th century, under Byzantine rule, Piran had become heavily fortified. Despite the defences, the Franks conquered Istria in 788 and Slavs settled in the region. By 952, Piran had become a part of the Holy Roman Empire.

The earliest reliable records of the area are in the 7th century work Cosmographia by an anonymous cleric of Ravenna. The name of the town most probably originates from the Greek “pyrrhos”, which means “red”, because of the reddish flysch stones commonly found in the town’s area. Some historians also refer it to “pyros”, meaning fire, due to ancient lighthouses which were supposed to be on the edge of the marina.

From 1283 to 1797, the town became part of the Republic of Venice, where it was governed in a semi-autonomous way, with a council of local noblemen assisting the Venetian delegate. Several enemy (e.g. from the Republic of Genoa) and pirate assaults were repelled during the late Middle Ages; a great pestilence hit the town in 1558, killing about two thirds of the population. The last decades of Venetian rule were marked by decadence, due to the competition with the nearby Austrian port town of Trieste.

The town was annexed to the Austrian Empire in 1797; but during the years from 1806 to 1814, it was ceded to the Napoleonic Empire. On 22 February 1812, the Battle of Pirano was fought between a British and a French ship of the line in the vicinity of Piran. This was a minor battle of the Adriatic campaign of the Napoleonic Wars.

Source: wikipedia.org