2 - UNESCO: World Heritage

DESCRIPTION
The level of cultural preparedness was such that the more modern ideas of the 19 th century led to and
facilitated the establishment of the first university in Greece by the British Lord Guilford. It was one of the first
towns in the Adriatic to acquire a neo-classical style during the 19 th century thanks to British interventions, while
at the same time it was a hotbed of modern Greek Romanticism since Andreas Calvos and Dionysius
Solomos both lived and worked there, both shining figures of Greek literature.
A haven for those persecuted by the Ottoman Empire, a centre for the spread of revolutionary ideas and
printed material to the peoples of the East, the town was also a haven to the supporters of Garibaldi during the
century of Italian unification. Corfu is consequently associated with the liberation movements of the century of
revolutions making it a monument complementing world history. It is no chance thing that to this day the
‘Reading Society’, one of the characteristic Jacobin clubs dating from 1818, has survived. Today it houses
one of the most important libraries in Greece.
As an old administrative centre it has a unique archive of 10,000 linear metres of shelves full of documents.
The oldest date back to the 14 th century written in Greek and Italian documenting the history of the island and
the wider area: Dalmatia, Istria, Albania, Southern Italy and Venice, Epirus and mainland Greece, the Ionian
lslands and Crete.
In particular the Corfu Archives contain a document signed by Napoleon Bonaparte as witness at the wedding
of one of his officers during his short stay on the island. Moreover the entire correspondence of Ioannis
Capodistrias, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Empire and author of the federal constitution of the
Swiss Confederation are to be found in the archives. Next to the aforementioned documents are hundreds of
documents from the State of the Ionian islands, the first constitutional state to be born following the fall of the
Venetian and under the protection of the Russian and Ottoman Empires (1799-1807). There follow numerous
documents from the French (1807-1814) and British (1814-1864) administrations and of course the Greek
administration established on the island in 1864.
The archives include unique documentation related to the European dimension of Corfu, given the fact that
from the middle ages it changed administrations with each force that settled in the area: the Byzantines,
Angevins, Venetians, French, Ottomans, Russians, British and Greeks.
Corfiot religious sensitivity remains true to Byzantine traditions since for centuries its art has been dedicated to
Paleologian forms of inspiration despite borrowings from Italian art, while at the same time it immortalizes the
art of Crete. Corfu welcomed the Cretan artists of the Diaspora when Crete passed into Ottoman hands in
1669. The work of Michail Damaskinou, an artist who lived between Crete, Venice and Corfu, was
particularly loved on Corfu as is testified by the large number of his works that have survived. The work of
Georgios Klontzas, Emmanuel Lambardou and Jeremiah Palladas was also well liked.
The Old Town of Corfu Nomination for inclusion on the World Heritage List 40
2