Greece - Korina Miller [371]
Iraklio burst out of its city walls long ago, but these massive fortifications, with seven bastions and four gates, still dwarf the concrete 20th-century structures around them. Venetians built the defences between 1462 and 1562. You can follow them around the heart of the city for views of Iraklio’s neighbourhoods, though it’s not a particularly scenic trip.
The 16th-century Koules Venetian fortress (Iraklio Harbour; admission €2; 9am-6pm Tue-Sun), at the end of the Old Harbour’s jetty, was called Rocca al Mare under the Venetians. It stopped the Turks for 22 years and then became a Turkish prison for Cretan rebels. The impressive exterior features reliefs of the Lion of St Mark. The interior has 26 overly restored rooms and good views from the top. The ground-level rooms are used as art galleries, while music and theatrical events are held in the upper level.
The long, vaulted arcades of the Venetian Arsenal are opposite the fortress.
Several other notable Venetian structures survive. Most famous is the Morosini Fountain (Lion Fountain) on Plateia Venizelou, which spurts water from four lions’ jaws into eight ornate marble troughs. Built in 1629, the fountain was commissioned by Francesco Morosini, then governor of Crete. Its centrepiece marble statue of Poseidon with his trident was destroyed during the Turkish occupation. Opposite is the three-aisled, 13th-century Agios Markos Basilica. Frequently reconstructed, it’s now the Municipal Art Gallery ( 2810 399228; 25 Avgoustou; admission free; 9am-1.30pm & 6-9pm Mon-Fri, 9am-1pm Sat). A little north is the attractively reconstructed 17th-century Venetian Loggia. A Venetian version of a gentleman’s club where aristocrats came to drink and gossip, it’s now the Town Hall.
The delightful Bembo Fountain, at the southern end of 1866, was built by the Venetians in the 16th century. The ornate hexagonal edifice adjacent was a pump house added by the Turks, and is now a kafeneio (coffee house).
The Museum of Religious Art ( 2810 288825; Monis Odigitrias; admission €2; 9.30am-7.30pm Mon-Sat Apr-Oct, 9.30am-3.30pm Nov-Mar) is in the former Church of Agia Ekaterini beside Agios Minas Cathedral. Its impressive collection of icons, frescoes and elaborate ecclesiastical vestments include six icons by Mihail Damaskinos, mentor of El Greco.
The Church of Agios Titos (Agiou Titou) was constructed after the Byzantine reconquest of Crete in AD 961, was converted to a Catholic church by Venetians, and then became an Ottoman mosque. It has been rebuilt twice after being destroyed by fire and then an earthquake.
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RENAISSANCE MEN OF VENETIAN CRETE
While many people have heard of a certain Cretan painter nicknamed El Greco, most visitors would be surprised to learn just how significant Cretan scholars and humanists were to the Italian Renaissance, and to early modern thought in general.
When the Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453, many Byzantine scholars took refuge in Venetian-held Crete, bringing with them priceless manuscripts and knowledge. The island became a way-station for intellectuals and ideas – at precisely the moment when a hunger for learning ancient Greek and Latin texts in the original was growing in Italy and other Western European countries. Indeed, wealthy Italian noblemen such as that great Florentine, Cosimo de’ Medici, were funding whole Platonic ‘academies’, where aspiring scholars sat enraptured at the feet of learned Greek émigrés.
Further, the simultaneous invention of the printing press meant that ancient texts suddenly could be made widely available. And a Cretan typesetter and calligrapher, Markos Mousouros (1470–1517), designed the typeface in which Europeans would read many of the first printed Ancient Greek texts. His employer, Aldus Manutius, a Venetian publisher who revolutionised and popularised the study of Ancient Greek philosophy and literature, used the typeface based on Mousouros’ own handwriting to print his editions of the Greek classics.
According to Dr George Karamanolis, professor of ancient philosophy at