Vonitsa was first inhabited in the 4th century AD by Byzantine refugees, who sought safety from the devastating invasion of the Visigoths. In 1204 Vonitsa came under the rule of the Despotate of Epirus, a Byzantine successor state that fought determinedly to liberate the lands conquered by the Latins. After brief spells under Serbian and Albanian rule, it became part of the territories controlled by Carlo I Tocco, the Count palatine of Kefalonia and Zakynthos. In the 1470s it fell to the Ottomans, but was taken by the Venetians in 1684 and remained in their control until 1797, when it was conquered by Napoleon. The French kept it for less than a year. Ali Pasha of Ioannina took it by surprise in 1798. Vonitsa was finally liberated by the Greeks in 1828.