OTRANTO, a city of Italy in the province of Lecce (Terra d’Otranto), 53J miles by rail south of Brindisi on the coast of the Adriatic, within sight on a clear day of the mountains of Albania. Though at present a small place with a communal population of only 2333 (1881), it was formerly one of the most celebrated cities of southern Italy”, and the seat of an archbishop who bore the title of primate of the Salen tines.

Probably of Greek origin, Hydruntum or Hydrus, as it was called, seems for a time to have suffered from the prosperity of Brundusium, but by the 4th century it had become the regular port for travellers bound for the East by Apollonia and Dyrrachium. It remained in the hands of the Greek emperors till its second capture by Robert Guiscard in 1068. In 1480 the Turkish fleet under Achmet, grand-vizier of Mohammed II., destroyed the city and massacred or enslaved the inhabitants; and, though Otranto was recovered for Ferdinand by Alphonso, duke of Calabria, and fortified by King Alphonso and Charles V., it never rose to its former importance. During the war of the League of Cambrai, Ferdinand of Aragon expelled the Venetians, who had been for some time in possession of the city. In 1810 Napoleon made Fouche duke of Otranto. The cathedral (S. Annunziata), a three-aisled basilica ending in three apses, contains a mosaic floor dating from 1163, greatly injured by tlχe Turkish horses; and the castle still stands which gave its title to Walpole’s well-known novel, The Castle of Otranto.