The Triangular Fortress of Butrint, Albania. New studies for the conservation and the valorisation

An important programme of valorisation of the architectural heritage involved the Triangular Fortress in Butrint, in Albania, nowadays UNESCO World Heritage Site. The little knowledge on this supposedly 15th-century Venetian fortress represented a stimulating task for a research, which started with the architectural survey of the structure. Finding information on the time of construction was challenging, the few written books and essays being hardly compatible and lacking confirmation. Therefore, a research was carried out in the State Archives and the Museo Correr Library in Venice, which unveiled unpublished manuscripts and drawings, casting new light on the fortress. On the base of this study, it is now possible to suppose that the Ottomans erected the fortress after 1655. The archive founds, together with the results of the survey analysis, helped also to depict a plausible sequence of the historical phases of construction until its damaging in 1798