112 ANDREW J. SHIPMAN MEMORIAL 



Albanians took place, going into and settling in Sicily. By 

 the help of the Sicilians, the tide again turned in favor of Scan- 

 derbeg, and in 1450 Amurath II undertook to make peace with 

 him. At this time the third and greatest emigration of the 

 Albanians took place, and they settled chiefly at Palazzo Adri- 

 ano, Mezzojuso, Contessa, Piana dei Greci and Palermo in 

 Sicily. After the death of Scanderbeg, in 1467, and the taking 

 of Croia by the Turks, larger migrations of the Albanians fol- 

 lowed. These settled in Basilicata, Calabria, Sicily, and even 

 the Abruzzi. From 1460 to 1506 the Kings of Naples were 

 continually making land grants to the Albanians all over their 

 territories.^ 



Bringing the Greek rite and Greek language (as a learned 

 and ecclesiastical tongue) with them, they naturally accommo- 

 dated themselves to the Greek population they found around 

 them, and followed on Italian soil the beloved rite and faith 

 which they had so valorously defended against the Turks. 

 And they in Southern Italy and Sicily had good reason to 

 make common cause with them, for the yoke of the Saracen 

 had been lately removed from them. Pope after Pope con- 

 firmed their rights to their Greek forms and strange tongue, 

 and the civil powers enforced them. Leo X and Paul III par- 

 ticularly defended these strangers of the Greek rite. 



Gradually, however, they became Italianized, and in the 

 course of three centuries bi-lingual. Even now the Albanian 

 language remains among them in remote country districts like 

 the Irish used to be in Ireland. I have had pointed out to me 

 in New York an old Italo-Albanese woman, of whom it was 

 said she spoke only Albanian and no Italian. But that is rare, 

 and the average Italo-Albanese or Italo-Greek is hard to dis- 

 tinguish except by his devotion to the Greek Catholic rite. 



All these people in Southern Italy and Sicily are miserably 

 poor. In Calabria and Basilicata they have little or nothing to 

 live on. Their very poverty has contributed to the decline of 

 their Greek rite. They could not keep up their churches beau- 

 tifully, decently and in good order, nor could they spare their 

 sons for the priesthood. Every effort had to be made to strug- 

 gle for a bare livelihood, and the luxury of sending a sturdy, 



^ Giustppe Ls. Mantia, I CapitoH delle II Rito Greco in Italia, Rome, 1758, 



Colonic Greco-Albanesi, Palermo, 1904- 3 vols. Vincenzo Vannutelh, Sguardt 



Francesco Tajani, U Istoria Albanesi, all' Oriente, XVI, Rome, 1890. 

 Salerno, 1886. Pietro Pompilio Rodoti, 



