All images © by Roberto Piperno, owner of the domain. Write to romapip@quipo.it.
Notes:
Page revised in April 2021.
All images © by Roberto Piperno, owner of the domain. Write to romapip@quipo.it.
Notes:
Page revised in April 2021.
(1900 Times Atlas of the World) | Key dates: 1204 As a consequence of the Latin conquest of the Byzantine Empire Navarino and Calamata are assigned to the Villehardouin family 1500 Sultan Beyazit II invades Peloponnese and conquers the two towns 1686 The Ottoman garrisons of the fortresses capitulate 1714 The Venetians abandon the fortresses |
April 26, 1805. The harbour and island of Navarin, the ruined
castle of Paleo Navarino, and a corner of the
fortress of Neokastro, now become visible. (..) Pausanias wrote:
"There is a road, of not more than a hundred
stades in length, from Mothone to the promontory Coryphasium, upon which Pylus is situated; this city was founded by Pylus, son of Cleson,
but who, having been soon driven out by (..) Neleus,
went to the neighbouring country of Eleia, and
there founded another Pylus. (..) Here is a temple of Minerva Coryphasia and a house named the House of Nestor,
which contains a picture of him.
William Martin Leake - Travels in the Morea - 1830
The current name of the town, Pylos, is associated with the wise King Nestor who participated in the hunting of the Calydonian boar
and in the War of Troy.
The promontory Coryphasium, a precipice
towards the lagoon, is crowned with
the ruins of a fortress or castle of the middle
ages, called Paleo-Navarino (..) a form of the name, more Italian
than Greek. Below the ruined fortress on the
northern side, at the bottom of the cliffs, there
is a (..) small circular port. (..) The situation of the Pylus
of Neleus and his successors, appears to have
been a much disputed question in the time of
the Roman Empire. Strabo quotes a proverbial verse to shew that there were three Pyli
near the western coast of the Peloponnesus. (..) The chief objection to Paleo Navarino as the
site of a capital city, is the scarcity of water. (..) It may,
perhaps, have been one reason why Pylus never
flourished as a city, except during the Neleian
dynasty.
Leake
(1805) The remains of
Navarino Vecchio consist in a fort or castle of
mean construction, covering the summit of a hill
sloping quickly to the south, but falling in abrupt
precipices to the north and east. The town
was surrounded by a wall, which, allowing for the
natural irregularities of the soil, represented a
triangle, with the castle at the apex or summit. (..) We were unable to find any squared blocks
of stone or marble, the usual indications of the
existence of more ancient cities.
William Gell - Narrative of a journey in the Morea - 1823
The Franks built on the site of the acropolis of ancient Pylus a small fortress, which lost its importance in 1573 when the Ottomans, after the defeat of their fleet at Lepanto in 1571, built a new fortress (Neokastro) at the southern entrance to the bay.
The southern entrance to the bay, which was known also as is il Zonchio by the Venetians, and the island of Sfacteria seen from Neokastro
April 27. I employed the whole of this day
in examining the island of Navarin, anciently
called Sphacteria, making a tour of
it in a boat, and then walking over it on foot; (..) Sphacteria
has been made known to all the world, by the
defeat of the Lacedaemonians in 425 BC; in memory of
which event the Athenians erected a statue of
Victory in the Acropolis. (..) The castle stands on a cape, projecting towards the southern end of Sphacteria off
which there is a rock, called, from the tomb of
a Turkish saint upon it, Delikli-baba. Between
this rock and the fortress is the entrance into
the bay of Navarin, a noble basin, with a depth
of water from twelve to twenty passi. Leake
This island has been separated into three or
four parts by the violence of the waves, so that
boats might pass from the open sea into the port,
in calm weather, by means of the channel so
formed. Gell
The bay of Navarino, the largest natural harbour in the Peloponnese, is closed by Sfacteria, a long and narrow island, parallel to the coast. Initially the Ottomans built two small bastions facing the sea where they placed their artillery. Later on they fortified the hill above the bastions
with a citadel and built long walls linking the citadel to the bastions thus creating a large fortified area for the development of a town.
The bay from Neokastro: the red line marks its northern entrance where Paleo Navarino is situated
Edris Bey the commandant, whom
I visit to-day in the fortress, is a young Starnbuli, or Constantinopolitan, who, having spent
the greater part of the property left him by his
father, (..) was glad to sacrifice the remainder in obtaining
this government, though, with all his efforts, its
profits are small. (..)
There are about 300 Turkish families in the
fortress, most of them in a wretched state of
poverty. (..) Ships generally anchor
at about a third of a mile from the skala, where
they are sheltered by the point of the castle; or
behind the island of Marathonisi which lies a little northward of the centre of the harbour. (..) On the side towards
the sea, where it ought to be strongest, the fortress has
received only a miserable patching since it was
battered by the Russians from the island, in the
year 1770. Leake
The walls protect a very large area. The mosque (which had a minaret), now a church, repeatedly changed its function, depending on who was master of the fortress.
Bastion with evidence of a ditch and an outwork
During their occupation (1686-1714) the Venetians strengthened the citadel by building five bastions and a large walk-way along the walls with a ramp to allow easy access to it.
Interior of the citadel (which houses the guns which are shown in the image used as background for this page)
In 1714 however the Venetians preferred to abandon the fortress and to concentrate their troops in Modon.
In 1821 the insurgent Greeks seized the fortress, but in 1825 Ibrahim Pasha, son of Muhammad Ali, governor of Egypt, dislodged them. Today Navarino is chiefly known for the naval battle which took place on October 20, 1827 between the allied fleets of the Great Powers (France, Britain and Russia) supporting the Greek fight for independence and the fleet of Ibrahim Pasha who helped the Sultan to crush the rebellion. The monument in the main square of the modern town outside the fortress is dedicated to the three admirals (de Rigny, Codrington and Geiden) who defeated the Egyptians and forced them to leave the fortress in September 1828. It is embellished by two guns, one of which is Ottoman and the other Venetian (you may wish to see some highly decorated Venetian guns at Nauplia).
Turkish, Greek and Italian graffiti
Life in a fortress waiting for the enemy to arrive can be pretty boring and lead a man to believe his life is senseless. This feeling was shared by all the occupants of the fortress who felt the need to leave a sign of their existence by carving their names on the walls of the fortress (the Italian name relates to the Italian occupation of the fortress during WWII).
The fortress of Calamata
We now enter
the olive and garden grounds which surround
Kalamata. (..) The town
is situated at about a mile from the sea, on the
left bank of a torrent, which emerges from a
rocky gorge in Mount Taygetum, at the distance of a mile to the north-eastward of a hill
rising from the back of the town. This height
is crowned with a ruined castle of the middle
ages, and is naturally strengthened by a perpendicular cliff. Leake
In 1986 Kalamata, a flourishing town renowned for its olives, was hit by a major earthquake which caused at least 120 deaths. The castle built by the Villehardouin in 1208 showed that the building techniques of the past were more reliable than the modern ones.
Outer (left) and inner (right) entrances to the fortress
The advantageous situation of the castle-hill
on the bank of a river, at a small distance from
the mountains and near the head of this great
gulf, is such as could not have been overlooked
by the ancient Greeks; upon this foundation
alone, we might presume it to be the site of one of the maritime
cities of the Messeniac gulf in the time of the
Trojan war. (..) I could not succeed in finding any vestiges of
Hellenic antiquity at Kalamata. Leake
The original castle was enlarged with the addition of a wall curtain on its southern side; although this section looks more solid it does not show major evidence of being upgraded to the needs of artillery warfare.
The Venetians were not very interested in this mainly agricultural town and they just strengthened the gate tower of the outer ward and placed a winged lion on it. They did the same at the entrance to the inner ward. The castle was used as a barracks until the early XXIst century.
(left) A Venetian style portal; (right) Aghii Apostoli
The first object that strikes the traveller on
entering Kalamata, is the ruined mansion of
Benakhi, which, like that of Krevata at Mistra was destroyed by the Turks after the insurrection of 1770, in which the heads of those two
Greek families took a part. The son of Benakhi
is now Russian Consul at Corfu, and still enjoys
the rents of a considerable estate here, which
are collected by a married sister, living in the town. (..) The ceremony of the Entombment occurs this morning, at two hours before
day; the people come out of their houses in the
dark, and scramble to light their candles at the
priest's candle. There is then a procession,
consisting chiefly of women, through the streets
to the church. Kalamata is the only town in
the Morea, inhabited by Turks, where the
Greeks can perform this ceremony; which generally takes place within the walls of the
church or monastery. (..) Kalamata contains 400
families, of which only six are Turkish. The
government is in the hands of the chief Greeks,
and the voivoda is readily removed upon any
complaint of theirs. Leake
The account by Leake helps in understanding why Aghii Apostoli, an old Byzantine church, (and more in general Kalamata) is very important in modern Greek history; it was one of the sites where the uprising of the Peloponnese was announced in March 1821. It was a tiny chapel (right part of the building) which was enlarged during the Venetian occupation (left part of the building and major dome).
The Messenian Gulf seen from the fortress: to the left the peninsula of Maina; to the right that of Corone
You may refresh your knowledge of the history of Venice in the Levant by reading an abstract from the History of Venice by Thomas Salmon, published in 1754 (the Italian text is accompanied by an English summary) or you may wish to read excerpts (in Italian) from Memorie Istoriografiche del Regno della Morea Riacquistato dall'armi della Sereniss. Repubblica di Venezia printed in Venice in 1692 and related to Navarino and Calamata.
Introductory page on the Venetian Fortresses in Greece
List of the fortresses