View of the attractive town of Perast, Montenegro. Venice owned the city between 1420 and 1797. Perast was part of the Venetian Albania. The city's sixteen Baroque palaces were mostly built in this period, too, as were its seventeen Catholic churches and two Orthodox churches. The old city does not have a defensive wall, but instead it has nine defensive towers, the most important of which is the tower of the Holy Cross. These were built by the navy of the Venetian Republic in the 15th and 16th centuries.