CATTARO (Serbo-Croatian Kotor), a seaport of Monte negro, Yugoslavia. Pop. (I 5,011. The town, which is Venetian in appearance, occupies a ledge between the Montenegrin mountains and the Bocche di Cattaro, a beautiful inlet of the Adriatic, which expands into five broad gulfs united by narrower channels, and forms one of the finest natural harbours in the world. If railway communication were established with the in terior Cattaro might be made a big naval base and shipping centre. Cattaro is strongly fortified; on the seaward side Castelnuovo (Serbo-Croatian, Erceg-novi) guards the main entrance to the Bocche ; on the landward side, long walls run from the town to the castle of San Giovanni, far above, while the barren heights of the Krivosie, towards Montenegro, are crowned by small forts.
Cattaro is divided almost equally between the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox creeds. It is the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop with a Cathedral containing some beautiful marble sculp tures, a collegiate church and several convents. There is a sec ondary school, a naval college, an interesting naval museum, and a forest school. Cattaro is famous for its lace-making, and also does an extensive trade in cheese. Foreign visitors to Montenegro usually land at Cattaro, and go by motor diligence to Cetinje. Castelnuovo is a picturesque town which rose round the citadel built in 1377 by a Bosnian king. It has at various times been oc cupied by Turks, Venetians, Spaniards, Russians, French, English and Austrians. The Orthodox convent of St. Sava, standing amid beautiful gardens, was founded in the 16th century and contains many fine specimens of 17th century silversmiths' work.
Rhizon, the modern port of Risano, from which a track leads into Montenegro, was a thriving "Illyrian" city as early as 229 B.C., and gave its name to the Bocche, then known as Rhizonicus Sinus. Rhizon submitted to Rome in 168 B.C. and about the same time Ascrivium, or Ascruvium, the modern Cattaro, is first mentioned as a neighbouring city. Justinian built a fortress above Ascrivium in A.D. J35, after expelling the Goths, and a second town probably grew up on the heights round it. The city was plundered by the Saracens in 84o and by the Bulgarians in I102. In the next year it was ceded to Serbia by the Hungarian tsar Samuel, but revolted, and only submitted in 1184 as a protected state. It was already an episcopal see, and in the 13th century Dominican and Franciscan monasteries. were established to check the spread of Bogomilism. In the 14th century it was one of the capitals of the Serbian state of Dioklitiya, and Stephen Dushan had his mint here, while its commerce, rivalling that of Ragusa, provoked the jealousy of Venice. After the downfall of Serbia in 1389, it was seized and abandoned by Venice and Hun gary in turn, and finally passed under Venetian rule in 1420. It was besieged by the Turks in 1538 and 16S7, visited by plague in 1572, and nearly destroyed by earthquakes in 1563 and 1667. In 1707 it passed to Austria; in 1805 it was assigned to Italy; in 1806 the Russians occupied it and Napoleon, to whom it had been ceded, took Ragusa in its stead. From 1807-13 it was united to the French empire; in the latter year, the Montenegrins aided by the British fleet held it for 5 months, and in 1814 it was restored by the Congress of Vienna to Austria, with whom it remained until 1918. During the World War the Montenegrins arrived before Cattaro, which was a centre of submarine activity. The Slav sailors mutinied in 1918, but the Italians, refusing aid, many of them were shot or imprisoned.
See G. Gelcich (Gelcic) Memorie storiche sidle Bocche di Cattaro (Zara, 188o) .