(A 1) Inselgruppe Pelagosa. 143 
«Ancient history ignores it; we can hardly connect the name with 
the Macedonian Pelagonis bounding Illiria, nor with our old friends the 
Pelasei or Pelargoi. The word suggests an italian not a Jatin derivation 
from r£Azyos, Ihe latter word being used... 
Our prineipal modern autority is Abbate Fortis, whose description, 
sligthly abridged, is as follows. The island of Pelagosa lies 60 miles 
from Lissa, and a little more or less from the promontory of S. Angelo 
in Apulia. The main rock, and the smaller features which rise from the 
sea, are remains of an ancient volcano. I would not assure you, that 
it has sprung from the waters like many other parts of the Archipelago, 
althoush this is suggested. by the silence of the oldest geographers.... 
The lava, which forms the skeleton of the island, most ressembles the 
commonest matter erupted by Vesuvius, as far as we could judge, when 
sailing along it.» 
«If some naturaliste would visit its highest points, we might learn, 
whether it has been thrown up by a submarine volcano, like the island 
near Santorin in our days; or whether it was the summit ofsome ancient 
cone of eruption, whose roots and slopes were buried in the water, 
when the Strait of Gibraltar was formed, an invasıon which cannot be 
doubted by those, who have examined the bottoms and the coasts of 
our seas. The fishermen of Lissa declare that violent earthquakes are 
often felt there, and this would appear from the aspect of the island, 
which is rugged, ruinous and broken into fragments.» Hiernach fährt 
Burton fort, wie folgt: So far Forrıs, who has been copied and miscopied 
into those mines of errors.... 
It may be as well here to state at once the conclusions to which 
our researches led. One of the finds suggests that it was a battlefield and 
a burial-ground for men of the Stone-age. It is not without signs of 
Etruscan oceupation, and it was regularly inhabited by the Romans, 
Pagan and Christians: almost all their remnants seem to be sepulchral, 
as if they had converted the rock into a cemetery. 
From documents still preserved in the archives of Lesina, we learn 
that during the supremacy of Venice (thirteenth century) the noble 
Lusıcxan *) house of Slavogosti (?), being exiled by ihe «Serenissima 
Reppublica» took refuge in the rock and there built a stronghold. These 
fugitives practised every manner of oppression upon the hapless fishermen, 
*) Es ist schwer, dem Faden der allgemeinen Geschichte zu entnehmen, wie 
das Haus Lusignan ein Opfer der venetianischen Tyrannis geworden sein soll. Venedig 
kam mit diesem Hause, welches vom Ende des XII. Jahrhundertes an Cypern 
beherrschte, durch diese Insel in Berührung. Nachdem die Lusignan’s 1267 mit Hugo 
II. im Mannsstamme ausgestorben waren. ging Cypern an die weibliche und später an 
r 
