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Dulcigno

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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(Servian, Ultsin, Turk. Olgun), a seaport of Montenegro, on the Adriatic Sea, 8 m. W. of the Albanian frontier. Pop. (1900) about 5000. Shut in by hills and forests, and built partly on a promontory overlooking its bay, partly along the shore, Dulcigno is the prettiest of Montenegrin towns. Its narrow crooked lanes, however, with its bazaars, mosques, minarets and veiled women, give to its picturesqueness a decidedly Turkish air. The old quarter, on the promontory, is walled, and has a medieval castle, once of great strength. Turks form the bulk of the inhabitants, although their numbers decreased steadily after 1880, when the population numbered about 8000. Albanians and Italians are fairly numerous. Dulcigno has a Roman Catholic cathedral and an ancient Latin church. The Austrian Lloyd steamers call at intervals, and some shipbuilding and fishing are carried on; but the harbour lacks shelter and is liable to deposits of silt.

To the Romans, who captured it in 167 B.C., Dulcigno was known as Ulcinium or Olcinium; in the middle ages it was a noted haunt of pirates; in the 17th century it was the residence of Sabbatai Zebi (d. 1676), a Jew who declared himself to be the Messiah but afterwards embraced Islam. In 1718 Dulcigno was the scene of a great Venetian defeat. It belonged to the Turks until 1880, when its cession, according to the terms of the treaty of Berlin (1878), was enforced by the "Dulcigno demonstration," in which the fleets of Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria and Russia took part.