Crete-Discover the Unknown Crete

The Venetian Castle
overlooking the
town of Sitia
For many centuries Sitia remained one
of the most important fiefs of the aristocratic
families of the Venetian Republic. The
fortress (commonly known as Kazarma) was
destroyed along with the rest of the city in
1538 by the pirate Khaireddin Barbarossa,
but immediately rebuilt by the Venetians,
although it was then captured by the Turks
at the end of the eighteenth century. The
signs left by the devastation that Barbarossa
wreaked can still be seen in the little fireblackened
church of the monastery of
Faneromeni, few kilometres distant from
Sitia, built above a gorge of white rock and
visible from the sea, therefore easy prey for
the foreign hordes who landed on the coast.
In the period between the end of Venetian
rule and the imminent occupation by the
Turks, one of the island's most famous
writers, Vincenzo Cornaro (or Vincente
Kornaros), was born in Sitia, possibly of
noble Venetian origins or a Cretan aristocrat
who adopted an Italian name as was the
A small hamlet
was built near the
monastery of
Faneromeni
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