Kotor (redirected from Cattaro)

Kotor (kô`tôr), Ital. Cattaro, town (1991 pop. 5,620), SE Montenegro, on the Bay of Kotor, an inlet of the Adriatic. It is a seaport and a tourist center. The town was colonized by Greeks (3d cent. B.C.) and later belonged to the Roman and Byzantine empires. In 1797 it passed to Austria and became an important naval base; in 1918 it was transferred to Yugoslavia and was included in the constituent republic of Montenegro after World War II. It has a medieval fort and town walls and a 16th-century cathedral. As the oldest town in Montenegro, it is a state-protected historical monument.

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Kotor 

a city and port in Yugoslavia, in the Socialist Republic of Montenegro, on the picturesque Gulf of Kotor, the largest bay on the Adriatic coast. Population, about 10,000 (1970). Industry includes a ball-bearing plant, a fish cannery and other food-processing enterprises, and a steam power plant. Kotor has a school of navigation, a theater, historical archives, and a maritime museum. There is a health resort, and the city is a center for tourism. The Italian name for Kotor is Cattaro.

Kotor grew up in the fifth to sixth century (it is first mentioned in sources of the seventh century). Until the end of the 12th century (with interruptions), the city served as a base for Byzantium in southern Dalmatia (from the tenth to 12th century, Kotor was part of Zeta). From 1186 to 1371, Kotor was an important trading and handicrafts center of the Serbian state. From 1371 to 1420, the city was, in fact, an independent patrician republic. From 1420 to 1797, Kotor was under Venetian rule; from 1797 to 1806 and 1814 to 1918, it was under the domination of the Austrian Hapsburgs (from 1809 to 1813 it was one of the Illyrian Provinces). In 1918 a revolutionary uprising broke out among the sailors of Kotor. From 1941 to 1944 the city was occupied by Italian and fascist German troops.

The old part of Kotor, with its narrow, crooked streets and small squares, is surrounded by stone walls (dating from the 15th to 18th centuries) with gates (16th century). Among the numerous Romanesque buildings among Kotor’s architectural monuments are the cathedral of St. Tripun, which has a rich collection of medieval sacred utensils in the vestry (the building dates from the early 12th to the 14th century; partially rebuilt in the 17th and 18th centuries), and churches of St. Luke (1195), St. Mihovil (mid-12th to 14th century, with 14th-century frescoes in the interior), St. Mary (1221), and St. Paul (1266). Palaces in the Gothic, Renaissance, and baroque styles are found in Kotor: Buča (15th century), Bisanti (15th to 17th century), Pima (late 16th century), and Grgurina (the present-day Maritime Museum; 18th century).