Monemvasia Revisited

MONEMVASIA REVISITED A long-forgotten island city still has many lessons to teach.. by Norbert Schoenauer Norbert Schoenauer is >\facDonald Professor of Architecture at \fcGill University. Introduction CO L O SSAL ROC K ISLAN D jutting out tnto the sea along At he eastern c oast o f the Peloponnese provided the i nsular setting of medieval Monemvasia. During the Middles Ages, a large invincible fortress town occupied the p 1 ateau on top of the rock, and a flourishing commercial port lay at its base. Today, the upper city is in ruins and the lower town is nearly deserted e xcept i n the summer months, when a few Athenians and a sprinkle of Swiss and other foreign families return faithfully, year after year, to their summer residences i n the walled lower t own. Some tran si ent tour i sts al s o v i s i t 'vlonemvasia and scramble up the steep rock incli ne to the upper city i n search of the shadowy traces of a once flourishing city. But during the winter months, ~onemvasia hibernates. In the summer ot t905, Ramsay Traquair, the third director of the School of Architecture of M c C ill nevertheless o ffers a n ansight 1nto Hellen1c c1 t v Si tuat ed on the mainland University, visited Monemvasia. As a Greek medi eva l t own p l ann1ng, a just north of the roe:.. 1sland and along sc holar of the British School of chapter in the study of planning often a sheltered bay. was the anCient ur ban Archaeology at Athens, Traquair made neglected an f avour o f t he medieval c entre of thts reg1on. ~e :own ~as measurements of several Bvzantine t own des1g n pr acttced an Italy and built on and about a roe!..\ " 1.1 a fe~ c hurches of the city and published his \1.- estern Europe. Since \1onemvasia's 'ulared vards !rom t'1e protectec ba'. work an the annual of that institution. decltne p revent ed ats despoilatton b~ a ba' ~sed throughou: 'us ton : ..x :he nineteenth- c en t ur y u rban accretion. temyoran anchorage of s'ups sa. lang Se venty-five years later, reaching thi S c.1 t y a llows us today a untque to and trom Cape \la.ea. 'vlonemvasia with considerably less opportuni t v to look tnt o i t s med1eval difficult y , the author of t h1s sett1ng and t o analyse the structur e of tp1daur.:>s L tmera "' as a ;::>or: ::.:, monograph, accompamed by two recent a Byzanttne c atv . -\n attempt IS 'Tlade reputed :o ha'e been :!'le colon.a. ..c McGill gr aduates, Athena Kovatsl a nd here to d escr ibe bneflv the "uston ot foundatton of :he cn1zens .;,t -\~g l \( "ii" D1m1tnos Batsos, st umbled upon th1s t he town and then to portra' the Ep tdauros. The c ol omal -, ~, "-3 ~ i= enc hanting medieval town, b ut was charact er of 1t s u r ban env ironment. establ.s'le-d on an anc1en: \h cean stte ~ unaware a t the time t hat he w as as e' 1-:enced b' the e'ca,auon ~ ! ... following in the footsteps o f Traqua1r . Epidauros L1mera nume•ous c ~aMbc :orn"s. >O'ne "'tt" "::t tvp1cai steppec< dromoi. ..."" Although still relatively unknown to D u r 1ng t he Class1cal -\ge and ;;.. many students of architecture a nd preced ing t he establtshment of The town >lte was .rref'Uiar .n t,~r m l urban planning, Monemvas1a's h1story Monemvas1a, Epidauros Limer a, a and wa~ enclo>ed on Jol ':le~ ~' j~---------------------------- THE FIFTH COLUMN, Winter 1982 27 foruCtcauon walls mterspersed by narrow sand bar later replaced by a of the Peloponnese, and thus past !requent buttress-lt1ce towers. Tile long stone causeway and a bridge with \ionemvasia.''1 Third, the snhabitants acrooohs was built on the two hllltops thirteen arches near the middle. This of Monemvasia were skilled seamen of ~he sue and was an nner for-u·ess single access posnt to the island gave and merchants who through trade aa:essl:lle onlv from the tovr.t. Three the c1 ty 1ts name; '\lonemvasia' IS amassed great fortunes, some of which temples wer'e constructed on the denved from the Greek mane emvasis, they lavished upon their city. Fourth, ac:opoiLs: to At~na. -'\Dhrodite, and which roughly translated is 'single \-\onemvas1a's fame was also enhanced ,\sldep1os, t'"le last ~i.ng :he Greek entrance'. by a local wme produced m the region god of medicme and healing. A and exported to many countries; this fourth ternp.e was located near the This island of ;>recipitous cliffs arising wme, favoured in many medieval ?Or~ and was designated for :he out of the ~a IS about one mile long courts of Europe, was called worship of :eus Soter, the protector and has a 1-tigh, oval-shaped plateau at 'Malmsey', a corruption of the word of t.'le harbour. its peak, about six hundred feet above ~memvasia. Finally, \'lonemvasia was sea level; this plateau became the made the seat of a Greek bishopric 1t was dunng the Dark Ages, in the town sne of the upper fortress city or and thereby inevitably a Byzantine fourth and fifth centunes, when first citadel. On the southern side of the religious centre of medieval Greece. the Visigoths, t~en the -\vars and LSland the cliffs recede slightly in a Slavs innunda ted Greece, that the city crescent form and rock debris at the The e1ghth century also brought some fell vicum to barbar1an ltlCUrSions and !:lase of the cliffs created a relatively misfortune to the city. In 747 the tota.! oevastauon wtuch .ee eventuaJy w1de inclined plam at the island's plague ravished Monemvasia. After it to 1ts abandonment by the otizens. !:lase. Th1s inclined plain ofiered a subsided, Albanian and Slavic settlers Traces of the fortiftcatlon walls are logical means of access to the upper were encouraged by the crown to still 1dentif1able in the cultivated city and also provided an opportunity occupy the devastated agricultural !1elas now occupymg t.'le to~~orn site. ~or the development of the areas of the Peloponnese. The That few ruins of temples and Faubourg- l1'<e lower town. The economy of the region soon recovered butld1ngs surv1ved IS :mderstandable; strategic location of the island and ns and the wealth of the \1onemvasian after the destruction of Ep1dauros, the h1gh cliffs were, no doubt, the reasons citizen multiplied to such an extent :D~~o-n s1te ~rved as a converuent stone ·.vhy \-\onemvas1a was frequently that it attracted the attention of quarry •.!sed for the constructJon of referred to as the 'Gibraltar of Saracen pirates who regularly pillaged subsequent •Jrban settlements. Greece'. the southern coastal cities of the \iedi terranean basm. However, in The refugees of Epidauros Limera \\onemvasia was probably establiShed spite of several attempts to pillage appear to have establiShed a small towards the end of the sixth century and to subjugate Monemvasia, as they ~ttlement 1n the mounta.tns north of and during its first century of did Sicilian and Cretan cities, their !heir former town s1te, a place that is existence was probably an insignilicant efforts always failed. The city's still locally known as Palaea settlement. By 746, however, fortifications and its cliffs, defended \-\onemvasia. However, this small \-\onemvasia was already hailed as by the heroic Monemvasiotes, proved settlement d1d not endure for long; bemg the most important city on the to be invincible. r~ot offenng enough protection, this coast of the Peloponnese. No doubt, site was soon abandoned in favour of th1s rap1d growth to a position of In the eleventh century the "lormans t~ more secure southern location of s1gn1ficance is attributable to several captured Sicily from the Arabs, and the rock island of \-\onemvasia. Here factors. First, the city's cliffs and during the following century they also they laid t.'"le cornerstone of a more fortifications were virtually attempted to expand their domain to permanent fortress settlement that has .Jnassailable during the Middle Ages. the East. In fact, in 1147 a Norman now surv1ved for over a millenium. Second, the proximity of two large fleet appeared before \ionemvasia with bays, one north and the other south of the mtent to subjugate 1ts cuizenry, the island rock, as well as the but meeting a fierce resistance, their strategic location of the island along attack ended in defeat. Thus, during The rock island of \ionemvasia has the maritime route to the L~ant, the following year \-\onemvasia was been ldentsfied With the Minoa Akra 'Tlade the city a favoured reshipment spared the fate of massive destruction re!erred to by anc1ent ·.vriters and was centre; in fact, aJJ maritime traffic that Roger 11 inflicted upon other loated some twentv miles north of of both commercial or naval fleets areas of Greece. Cape Ma1ea on the eastern coast of "from the West to Constantinople or the Peloponnese. The island was Asia Minor had to pass between Crete The Byzantine Empire was reduced by connected to the mainland by a and Cape MaJea on the southern end the outcome of the Fourth Crusade to 28 THE FIFTH COLUMN, Winter 1982 ~!ON2~1Y.~IIA. ~..(.'-..:.0-.u ~ ~~-~ only five fragments still ruled by the Levant."3 Finally, in June of I.S9'J. ~telc.ng Greeks; the two Despotates of Rhodes perhaps more to tl)e ?ese.gers' and Ep1r us, the two Empires of "icaea Our 1ng the fifteenth cen t u r y , el aborate measures of 1solatton rather and Trobizond, and the ISolated Monemvas1otes had to face the threat than the1r assault, \lonemvas1a once for t r ess city of IAonemvasia.

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