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LESINA, CURZOLA, LISSA
disappeared, but some of the round bastions still survive. Opposite, across the very narrow channel, rises the arid desolation of Monte Vipera, above Orebid on Sabbioncello. Though Curzola is now, and for many passed centuries has been, purely Slav in race and Venetian in architecture, it was undoubtedly once Greek ; r¡ fiéXaiva K¿pKvpa, “ black Corfu ”, to distinguish it from its larger and more famous namesake, Corfu of the Ionian islands. Curzola was called “ black ”, apparently because of the pine-woods with which it was covered. Most of these have now disappeared, or are to be found only on the southern, the open sea side of the island. They have been cleared away to make room for vineyards, though at one time the forests of Curzola helped to feed the arsenal of Venice. Strabo and Pliny give Curzola as a colony from Knidos, in Asia Minor; and tradition has it that Antenor, doubtless on his way to found Padua, landed here and left a settlement behind him. “ Hie Antenoridae Corcyrae prima Melanae fundamenta locant,” says an ancient inscription over the Porta Marina of Curzola. But the long decline of the Byzantine power in the Adriatic, the barbarian pressure on the mainland which drove the Slavs to seek refuge in the islands, gradually obliterated all traces of