126	LESINA, CURZOLA, LISSA
asylum for the mainlanders flying before the Avar incursion in 639, and was peopled eventually by Slavs. Lesina then entered the general stream of Dalmatian island-history; was recovered for the Byzantine Empire under Manuel Comnene, was left exposed to the harrying piracy of Almissa and the Narentines, and to the restless operations of the Hungarians in their desire to establish their dominion over Dalmatia. This led to Lesina invoking the aid of Venice, and this again to the sack of the town by the Genoese in the war between Genoa and Venice, which ended in a complete Venetian victory in 1380. Sigismund put the island up for sale, and Ragusa, having a deeper pocket than Spalato, bought it and sent a governor with the title of “ Lord of the Isles ” to rule in Lesina. But finally came 1420, Loredan the Admiral, and the Lion of San Marco, and peace and prosperity, only once seriously interrupted when Uliz Ali, King of Barbary, in the year of Lepanto (1571), but before that famous victory, took and sacked Lesina on behalf of the Turks against Venice and Christendom. Lesina was the Venetian arsenal in the middle Adriatic down to 1776, when Curzola took its place, and Lesina fell into comparative neglect and ruin.