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=== Middle Ages === Control changed from Byzantine to Bulgarian hands several times during the [[Middle Ages]]. In the late 9th and the first half of the 10th century, Varna was the site of a principal [[scriptorium]] of the [[Preslav Literary School]] at a monastery endowed by [[Boris I]] who may have also used it as his monastic retreat. The scriptorium may have played a key role in the development of [[Cyrillic script]] by Bulgarian scholars under the guidance of one of [[Saints Cyril and Methodius]]' disciples. [[Karel Škorpil]] suggested that Boris I may have been interred there. The synthetic culture with Hellenistic Thracian, Roman, as well as eastern—Armenian, Syrian, Persian—traits that developed around Odessos in the 6th century under Justinian I, may have influenced the Pliska-Preslav culture of the First Bulgarian Empire, ostensibly in architecture and plastic decorative arts, but possibly also in literature, including Cyrillic scholarship. In 1201, [[Kaloyan]] took over the Varna fortress, then in Byzantine hands, on [[Holy Saturday]] using a [[siege tower]], and secured it for the [[Second Bulgarian Empire]]. {{See also|Siege of Varna (1201)}} [[File:Varna fortress.png|upright=1.35|thumb|left|Plan of Varna's medieval fortress.]] By the late 13th century, with the Treaty of Nymphaeum of 1261, the offensive-defensive alliance between [[Michael VIII Palaeologus]] and [[Republic of Genoa|Genoa]] that opened up the Black Sea to Genoese commerce, Varna had turned into a thriving commercial port city frequented by Genoese and later also by [[Republic of Venice|Venetian]] and [[Republic of Ragusa|Ragusan]] merchant ships. The first two maritime republics held consulates and had expatriate colonies there (Ragusan merchants remained active at the port through the 17th century operating from their colony in nearby [[Provadiya]]). The city was flanked by two fortresses with smaller commercial ports of their own, Kastritsi and Galata, within sight of each other, and was protected by two other strongholds overlooking the lakes, Maglizh and Petrich. Wheat, animal skins, honey and wax, wine, timber and other local agricultural produce for the Italian and Constantinople markets were the chief exports, and Mediterranean foods and luxury items were imported. The city introduced its own monetary standard, the ''Varna [[Hyperpyron|perper]]'', by the mid-14th century; Bulgarian and Venetian currency exchange rate was fixed by a treaty. Fine jewellery, household ceramics, fine leather and food processing, and other crafts flourished; shipbuilding developed in the [[Kamchiya]] river mouth. Fourteenth-century Italian [[portolan chart]]s showed Varna as arguably the most important seaport between [[Constantinople]] and the Danube delta; they usually labelled the region [[Zagore (region)|Zagora]]. The city was unsuccessfully besieged by [[Amadeus VI]] of Savoy, who had captured all Bulgarian fortresses to the south of it, including Galata, in 1366. In 1386, Varna briefly became the capital of the spinoff [[Principality of Karvuna]], then was taken over by the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottomans]] in 1389 (and again in 1444), ceded temporarily to [[Manuel II Palaiologos|Manuel II Palaeologus]] in 1413 (perhaps until 1444), and sacked by [[Crimean Tatars|Tatars]] in 1414.
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