Korčula in Croatia at Blue Hour - Birthplace of Marco Polo
The island of Korčula belongs to the central Dalmatian archipelago, separated from the Pelješac peninsula by a narrow strait of Pelješac, between 900 and 3,000 metres (3,000 and 9,800 ft) wide (illustration, right). It is the sixth largest Adriatic island with a rather indented coast. The highest peaks are Klupca, 568 m (1,864 ft) above sea level and Kom, 510 m (1,670 ft) high. The climate is mild; an average air temperature in January is 9.8 °C and in July 26.9 °C; the average annual rainfall is 1,100 mm. The island is largely covered with Mediterranean flora including extensive pine forests.
The island also includes the towns of Korčula, Vela Luka and Blato and the coastal villages of Brna, Lumbarda, Račišće, Zavalatica, Prižba and Prigradica and in the interior Žrnovo, Pupnat, Smokvica and Čara. The main road runs along the spine of the island connecting all settlements from Lumbarda on the eastern to Vela Luka on the western end, with the exception of Račišċe which is served by a separate road running along the northern coast. Ferries connect the city of Korčula with Orebić on the Pelješac peninsula and Drvenik on the mainland (near Makarska). Another line connects Vela Luka with Split and the island of Lastovo. Fast passenger catamarans connect those two ports with Split and the islands of Hvar and Lastovo. The main Adriatic ferry line connects Korčula with Dubrovnik, Split, Zadar and Rijeka and in summer there are direct ferries to Italian Adriatic ports. The island is divided into Korčula, Smokvica, Blato and Lumbarda municipalities.

According to legend, the island was founded by Trojan hero Antenor in the 12th century BC who is also famed as the founder of the city of Padua.
The island was first settled by Mesolithic and Neolithic peoples. There is archaeological evidence at the sites of Vela Spila (Big Cave) and at Jakas Cave near the village of Zrnovo. The finds of Vela Spila are on display at the Center for Culture in Vela Luka. The fate of these peoples is not know but the sites do provide a window into their way of life.
The second wave of human settement was by Illyrians. It is believed that the Illyrians arrived in Balkans approximately 1000 BC. They were semi-nomadic tribal people living from agriculture. There are numerous old stone buildings and fortresses (gradine) left behind by the Illyrians.
Melaina Korkyra (Greek: Μέλαινα Κόρκυρα, &quot;Black Corcyra&quot;) was the ancient Cnidian Greek colony founded on Korčula. Greek colonists from Corcyra (Corfu) formed a small colony on the island in the 6th century B.C. The Greeks named it &quot;Black Corfu&quot; after their homeland and the dense pine-woods on the island. Greek artifacts, including carved marble tombstones can be found at the local Korčula town museum. A stone inscription found in Lumbarda (Lumbarda Psephisma) and which is the oldest written stone monument in Croatia (and, until recently, in former Yugoslavia), records that Greek settlers from Issa (Vis) founded another colony on the island in the 3rd century BC. The two communities lived peacefully until the Illyrian Wars (220 BC to 219 BC) with the Romans.
The island became part of the Roman province of Illyricum after the Illyrian Wars. Roman migration followed and Roman citizens arrived on the island. Roman villas appeared through the territory of Korčula and there is evidence of an organised agricultural exploitation of the land. There are archaeological remains of Roman Junianum on the island and old church foundations. In 10 AD Illyricum was split into two provinces, Pannonia and Dalmatia. Korčula became part of the ancient Roman province of Dalmatia. In the 6th century it came under Byzantine rule.
The Great Migrations of the 6th and 7th centuries brought Slavic and Avar invasions into this region. As the so-called barbarians began settling on the coast, the Romanised local coastal population had to take refuge on the islands. Along the Dalmatian coast the Croatian Slavic peoples poured out of the interior and seized control of the area where the Neretva River enters the Adriatic, as well as the island of Korčula (Corcyra),which protects the river mouth. The Christianisation of the Croats began in the 9th century, but the early Slavic rural inhabitants of the island may well have fully accepted Christianity only later; in the early Middle Ages the Croatian population of the island was grouped with the Neretvians of the coastal Principality of Pagania (the land of the Pagans).

Marco Polo's alleged birthplace in modern-day Korčula
It is apparent that piracy on the sea emerged as Narentines, the settlers of the coastal Neretva Delta, quickly learned maritime skills in their new environment. At first Venetian merchants were willing to pay an annual tribute to keep their shipping safe from the infamous Neretvian pirates of the Dalmatian coast (predating the Uskok pirates based further north in Senj). After the 9th century, the island was briefly under nominal Byzantine suzerainty. In 998 the Principality of Pagania came under Venetian control. Doge Pietro II Orseolo launched a naval expedition along the coast and assumed the title Duke of Dalmatia. Afterwards Korčula came under the control of the Great Principality of Zahumlje.
In the 12th century Korčula was conquered by a Venetian nobleman, Pepone Zorzi, and incorporated briefly into the Venetian Republic. Around this time, the local Korčula rulers began to exercise diplomacy and legislate a town charter to secure the independence of the island, particularly with regard to internal affairs, given its powerful neighbors.

South coast of Korčula
The brothers of Stephen Nemanja, Miroslav and Stracimir, launched an attack on the island on 10 August 1184, raiding its fertile western part. The island's inhabitants called for help from the Republic of Ragusa (Dubrovnik), which in turn captured all of Stracimir's galleys.
The Statute of Korčula was first drafted in 1214. This legal document is the second oldest example of legislation among Slavs, with only the Russkaya Pravda of 11th and 12th Century Russia predating it. It guaranteed the autonomy of the island, apart from her outside rulers: the Grand Principality of Raška, the semi-independent Great Principality of Zahumlje and the Republics of Ragusa and Venice. Captains were created for each of the island's five settlements for organized defence. Korčula had fewer than 2,500 inhabitants at that time.
In 1221, Pope Honorius III gifted the island to the Princes of Krka (the Šubićs). Then in 1222, the Serbian King Stephen the First-crowned of Nemanja gifted his monasteries and lands on the island, referring to it as Krkar, to his followers of the Benedictine Monastic Order on Mljet.
During the 13th century the hereditary Counts of Korčula were loosely governed in turn by the Hungarian crown and by the Republic of Genoa, and also enjoyed a brief period of independence; but, in 1255, Marsilio Zorzi conquered the island's city and razed or damaged some of its churches in the process, forcing the Counts to return to Venetian supreme rule. According to a local tradition, Marco Polo was born at Korčula in 1254 to an established family of merchants, although there is no irrefutable proof of this claim. What is more definite is that the Republic of Genoa defeated Venice in the documented Battle of Korčula off the coast of Korčula in 1298 and a galley commander, Marco Polo, was taken prisoner by the victors to eventually spend his time in a Genoese prison writing of his travels. However, some Italian scholars believe that he may have been captured in a minor clash near Ayas (in sources from those times: Laiazzo). The controversy over the birthplace of Marco Polo between the Venetian and Korčulan theories is the subject of debate up to the present day.
After the writings of Pope Martin IV in 1284 and Pope Honorius IV in 1286 to the Archbishop of Ragusa, the Archbishop implaced a certain Petar as Bishop of Ston and Korčula – stacnensis ac Crozolensis. In 1291, Ivan Kručić was in Korčula's city as the Bishop of Korčula. Bishop Ivan contested his overlord, the Archbishop of Hvar, and wanted to unite Ston with his church domain. In 1300, Pope Boniface VIII finally founded the Korčula Bishopric under the Archbishopric of Ragusa. In 1333, as the Republic of Ragusa purchased Ston with Pelješac from the Serbian Empire, the suzerainty of Ston's Roman Catholic Church with the peninsula was given to the Bishopric of Korčula.

A panoramic view of the easternmost parts of Korčula, with Lumbarda, City of Korčula and Orebić (Pelješac) from left to right
Curzola, as the Venetians called it, surrendered to the Kingdom of Hungary in 1358 according to the Treaty of Zadar, but it surrendered to the Bosnian King Stefan Tvrtko I in the Summer of 1390. However the Kingdom of Hungary restored rule of the island. and in December 1396 Croatian-Hungarian King Sigismund gifted it to Đurađ II Stracimirović of the Balšić dynasty of Zeta, who kept it up to his death in 1403, when it was returned under the Hungarian crown. In 1409 it again became a part of the Venetian Republic, purchased by the neighbouring Republic of Venice in 1413–1417, it still declared itself subjected to Venice in 1420. In 1571 it defended itself so gallantly against the Ottoman attackers at the Battle of Lepanto that it obtained the designation Fidelissima from the Pope.
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