Location:  in the Chora (main town of the island)

 

Description:  the Castle-State of Naxos was founded in 1207 by Marco Sanudo (hence the structure’s name “Sanudo’s Castle”), when the Venetian diplomat/soldier seized 17 islands in the Aegean and set up the Aegean Duchy, with Naxos as its seat.  The Kastro was built on the ruins of the ancient Acropolis of Naxos, after first seizing the Byzantine Kastro of Apaliros.  Twelve large towers were built around the Kastro, of which only one remains today (the circular Krispi Tower later renamed Glezos Tower).

 

Access to the Kastro is from three gates, the most important of which is the marvelous Trani Gate ("Trani Porta") located on the northern side. From there official persons would enter, and today the old wooden gate still stands.  There is another gate at the southwest entrance, the “Paraporti”, and is the second most important gate of the Kastro, and leads to Nio Horio, where poor villagers once lived.

 

According to tradition, when Marco Sanudo set up his Duchy, he sectored the island into feudal domains, and then divided them up among his officers as a show of gratitude.  Many of them built towers on the most beautiful - and in the most fertile - country areas, while some others built manors around Sanudo’s palaces.  The houses of the Kastro date back to the 14^th and 15^th  century, and most of them have Coats of Arms of Catholic nobles.

 

The Greeks built their two districts around the Kastro’s perimeter:  the Bourgo on the western side of the hill, where the more affluent Naxian Orthodox had settled; and Nio Horio around Ag. Kyriaki (St. Sunday), where poor villagers resided.  In this manner, today’s design of the Chora was shaped.  In Venetian times that design consisted of three areas:  the public Kastro, where Catholics resided; and the public areas of Bourgo and Nio Horio, where Greeks resided.

 

Nevertheless, the Kastro was not only a place of residence, but served at the same time as an educational, administrative, social and religious center for the Venetians.  At Trani Gate there is a vertical 64cm length engraving, where, during Venetian rule, traveling tradesmen would measure their cloth goods that they had brought with them for the ladies of the manors.  Today, in the back streets of the Kastro, there are all kinds of shops, coffee houses, and restaurants. 

 

In general, the entire Kastro takes the visitor on a trip into the past, and constitutes a basic and inextricable part of the history of the island.

 

- the former Commercial school founded by the Jesuits which today houses the Archaeological Museum of Naxos.

 

- the Kazatza Chapel, a structure of the 14^th  century which according to tradition, was the Duchy Chapel of Marco Sanudo.

 

- the Ursuline Monastery and School that today houses various cultural events.

 

- the Krispi - Glezos Tower, the unique one of the twelve towers built by Marco Sanudo, and made up of ramparts still to be seen today. 

 

- the Della Rocca Barozzi Tower, that has been converted into a Venetian and Popular Arts Museum.

 

-  the Roman Catholic Cathedral located at the center of the square of the Kastro, a structure of the Medieval era.

 

- the Archdiocese of Kangelaria, the “Duchy Palace”, today used as a residence by the Catholic bishop when visiting Naxos.

 

- the Metropolitan Orthodox Temple that was built in 1780 and in which there are old icons from the years of Turkish rule.

 

- the Panagia Theoskepasti (Our Lady of God’s Shelter) which is a small Orthodox church within the “heart” of the Venetian Kastro.

 

- the Ag. Antonios (St. Anthony) of Padova (or Monastery of the Capuchin Monks).