[2][3][4] In the early 15th century, Carlo I Tocco, the Count palatine of Cephalonia and Zakynthos, became the ruler of most of western continental Greece (Aetolia-Acarnania and Epirus).

When he too died in 1448, his heir Leonardo III Tocco attempted to seek Venetian protection, whereupon the Ottomans began to occupy the remaining mainland territories, seizing Arta in 1449.

Immediately after its conclusion, an Ottoman fleet under Gedik Ahmed Pasha conquered the remnants of the Tocco principality, although Cephalonia and Zakynthos were lost again in 1481.

[1][2][3] The 17th-century geographers Hajji Khalifa and Evliya Çelebi record that the province encompassed six kazas (districts): Santa Maura (Lefkada), Vonitsa, Angelokastron (in Turkish Enkili-Kastri), Xiromero (Tr.

[2] From 1788, the ambitious semi-independent Albanian ruler of Ioannina, Ali Pasha, coveted Karli-Eli and tried to gain control over it by intervening in its governance.

From 1799 until 1805, the province was administered by Yusuf Agha, a cousin of the Valide Sultan's treasurer, but in 1806, probably due to the death of Mihrişah the year before, Ali Pasha managed to gain control of Karli-Eli, which he kept until the Ottoman government turned against him in 1820.