The Migration of the Slavs to Italy

Abstract

The migration of the Slavonic peoples to Italy occured from the middle of the 7,h century to the 18,h century. The process is divided into three different periods: the migrations in the early Middle Ages, the forced migrations in the form of slavery, and the peak wave of migrations from the mid-14,h to the mid-16th century. Several hundred thousand migrants came to Italy in this period and settled in the towns and in the countryside of nearly all of Italy. The main reasons for leaving their homelands and moving across the Adriatic were poverty and famine, trade and business, and the advance of the Ottoman Empire and the resulting Turkish invasions and raids.