Corte - Eglise de l'Annonciation

The island of Corsica is one of the 18 regions of France. It was colonized the Carthaginians, the Greeks, the Etruscans and the Romans. After the Roman empire collapsed, Corsica got invaded by the Vandals and the Ostrogoths. For a short while the island belonged to the Byzantine Empire, then the Franks granted the island to the Pope, in the early 11th century Pisa and Genoa together freed the island from the threat of Arab invasion. The island came under the influence of the Republic of Pisa, later it belonged to Genua for centuries. In 1755 after a long fight for independence from Genoa the independent Corsican Republic was proclaimed, but in 1769, when the island was conquered by France. As the areas near the coast over centuries have been threatened by attacks and raids of pirates many old hamlets and dwellings are wide inland, high in the mountains.

The "Eglise de l'Annonciation" was erected in the center of Corte around 1450 and got rebuilt in the 17th. The outer walls of the church have still bullet holes in it from the intense fighting that went on in this area during the Corsican war of independence in the mid 18th century.