Sofia Katopi received her PhD in Art History and Archaeology at the Department of History and Archaeology of the University of Crete in 2016. She has been a collaborator of the "Western Art in Crete" program at the Institute for Mediterranean Studies for many years. Since 2018 she is a Participant Scholar in the Getty-sponsored workshop series: Mediterranean Palimpsests: Connecting the Art and Architectural Histories of Medieval and Early Modern Cities. She is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Mediterranean Studies in the ERC research project RICONTRANS Visual Culture, Piety and Propaganda: Transfer and Reception of Russian Religious Art in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean (16th – early 20th c.) Her research interests focus on the material imprint of the various power relations in the urban fabric of the city centers of the Venetian state, concentrating especially on the use of all’antica style architecture. In addition, she researches the changes in the views and attitudes towards Venetian and Ottoman monumental heritage that took place in Greece during the 20th century.
Μπορείτε να παρακολουθήσετε την ημερίδα εδώ:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDS6KHIpCWo
https:... more Μπορείτε να παρακολουθήσετε την ημερίδα εδώ:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDS6KHIpCWo https://youtu.be/IWit05wrVLU Η ημερίδα πραγματοποιείται στο πλαίσιο της έρευνας «Ο ρόλος των Μεγάλων Δυνάμεων στις τύχες των βενετικών μνημείων στην Κρήτη κατά το πρώτο τέταρτο του 20ού αιώνα», της Δρ. Σοφίας Κατόπη, που χρηματοδοτείται από το Κεντρο Ερευνας για τις Ανθρωπιστικες Επιστημες (ΚΕΑΕ) για το έτος 2021.
Art in the Periphery, Annual Workshop 2016-2017, 6 December 2016
This paper will focus on the ways a new architectural language was introduced to the Venetian col... more This paper will focus on the ways a new architectural language was introduced to the Venetian colony of Crete in the last quarter of the sixteenth century and the reasons it was quickly adopted by different patrons for all kinds of buildings, public and private, secular and religious. It will also address problems concerning style, terminology and periodization.
CIHA 2012, 33rd Congress of the International Committee of the History of Art, Germanisches National Museum, Nürnberg, 2012
Attitudes to historical monuments in Greece have been determined by the importance antiquity had ... more Attitudes to historical monuments in Greece have been determined by the importance antiquity had for the emergent Greek state in the nineteenth century, following the uprising against the Ottoman empire. In its effort to legitimize its claim to independence and proclaim the nation’s unity, the new Greek state drew upon the “glorious past”. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the medieval period was incorporated into the national narrative ensuring the necessary intermediary link to a centuries-long chain of Greek civilization. This idea of continuity was essential to the construction of the Greek national identity. On the other hand, in this tripartite ordering of Greek history, from antiquity via Byzantium to the modern period (beginning with the Greek Revolution in 1821), buildings constructed during times of foreign domination, like the Venetian or Ottoman, were not included in the monuments considered representative of the culture and identity of the nation. When in the late twentieth century the heritage of the Venetian period began to acquire greater significance, many of these monuments had already been demolished. In this paper, the loggia of Candia (present-day Herakleion) and the clock tower of Rethymnon will be used as case studies in order to investigate the changing attitudes towards the Venetian heritage of Crete, which during the twentieth century went from devaluation to praise. Both buildings were demolished, but a replica of the former was completed by the mid 1980’s, housing now the city hall of Herakleion. The reconstruction was given an award in 1987 by Europa Nostra and it now comprises one of the iconic monuments of the city, a landmark found on every tourist guide. The recent initiative in Rethymnon to reconstruct the Venetian clock tower, which was demolished in 1945, points in the same direction: the reinvention of an iconic monument which demonstrates the town’s new pride for its Venetian heritage.
Stato da Mar: Art, Antiquities and Cultural Exchange in the Venetian Maritime Empire, 6 July 2011, Università Ca’ Foscari, Venice, Aula Baratto
There is a big discrepancy between testimonies from written sources of the Venetian period in Cre... more There is a big discrepancy between testimonies from written sources of the Venetian period in Crete concerning western art on the island (painting, sculpture, architecture) and the actual surviving evidence. In an attempt to rediscover the extent and nature of the Western art that reached Crete or was created there during the four and a half centuries of Venetian domination, we have attempted to document the sculpture and stone carving now to be found on the island. The project “Western art in Crete” run by the Institute of Mediterranean Studies will be presented along with the questions posed by the recorded material.
The public loggia was among the first buildings that the Venetians erected in the piazza of San M... more The public loggia was among the first buildings that the Venetians erected in the piazza of San Marco in Candia, the capital of their new colony of Crete. As archival records testify, it was already considered a symbol of the Venetian domination as early as 1269 when armed feudatories gathered in front of the loggia to demonstrate their opposition to decisions taken by the administration.
A ground plan from Venice’s Archivio di Stato records a loggia built during the sixteenth century, which does not survive, since between 1625 and 1630, it was replaced by a new public loggia. In the beginning of the twentieth century, this seventeenth-century loggia was considered ‘damaged beyond repair’ and was demolished. A replica of the building was constructed later on.
The seventeenth-century loggia of Candia, known today from photographs taken at the beginning of the twentieth century, belongs stylistically to the sixteenth century, with a Doric order arcade on the ground floor and an ionic one on the storey. This presentation will demonstrate that the stylistic choice of a ‘renaissance loggia’ built well into the seventeenth century, in addition to the Doric order, rustication and ornamentation of the metopes with war-trophies and lions of St. Mark, not only emphasized the militant character of the public building, but also exalted the triumphant character of Serenissima’s rule in Candia by alluding directly to St. Mark’s square in Venice. Moreover, the question of the building’s all’antica decoration will be addressed, especially in relation to the Venetian hunt for antiquities in Crete.
This paper discusses the context of the presence of different Russian ecclesiastical utensils, su... more This paper discusses the context of the presence of different Russian ecclesiastical utensils, such as epitaphs, priests’ vestments and Eucharistic vessels, found in churches and monasteries in the Rethymno prefecture at the time of Cretan Autonomy (1898-1913). Rethymno district came under Russian administration between 1897 and 1909 and for this reason it was selected as a case study of the ERC research project RICONTRANS: Visual Culture, Piety and Propaganda: Transfer and Reception of Russian Religious Art in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean (16th – early 20th c.). The main contribution of the paper is the research about the transfer and acquisition mechanisms, as well as the mappings of the Russian liturgical objects in light of their relations towards different political and social circumstances, taking into consideration that the island of Crete never had the intense commercial relations with Russia like other parts of Greece. The author connects her findings with the wider political context, like the strategies of preserving and supporting Orthodoxy against Catholic and Protestant propaganda, recognizing it as the key political instrument of the so-called "soft power" for the influence of Imperial Russia in the region.
Τ. Κιουσοπούλου, Β. Φωσκόλου (επιμ.), Grata Dona. Μελέτες προς τιμήν της Όλγας Γκράτζιου, Πανεπιστημιακές Εκδόσεις Κρήτης, Ηράκλειο, 269-294, 2023
"'Towards the beautification of the city and the improvement of the health of its residents’: Mod... more "'Towards the beautification of the city and the improvement of the health of its residents’: Modernization and demolitions of monuments during the early years of Cretan Autonomy" The subject of the article is the alteration of the landscapes of Cretan cities achieved through demolitions of various Venetian and Ottoman buildings during the early years of the Cretan Autonomy period (1898-1913). Using information from the State Archives and local newspapers the author investigates the role played by the “protecting” Great Powers (England, France, Italy and Russia), who in cooperation with the Cretan government, partook in the modernization process of the Cretan cities and the demolitions that it involved. The buildings that constitute the focal point of the article are the Venetian fortifications and the Ottoman kiosks (protruding bay windows). They were criticized for not letting the air freely circulate in the cities and not allowing the sunlight to get through, thus causing health problems to the inhabitants. In addition, the Venetian walls were accused for not letting the cities develop freely, while at the same time hindering the communications with the countryside and the access to the ports. Needless to say, these arguments against city walls had been used with the exact same words in order to demolish the walls of major European cities in the 19th century. In Crete though, the modernization rhetoric acquired a nationalistic overtone, as the buildings to be demolished were considered “foreign” to the Greek civilization and were accused of reminding brutal times of slavery of the Cretan people. This rhetoric gradually developed into an important argument for those supporting that the modernization of the cities could not progress unless the old buildings were demolished. At the same time, the demolitions provoked the indignation of one of the “protecting” powers, the Italians, who considered the Venetian buildings part of their own national heritage. Thus, in Italian magazines and newspapers of the period, Cretans were rendered as barbarians destroying important monuments, while at the same time, Italian irredentist claims were insinuated over Crete. What is interesting, is that a change in the attitude towards Venetian buildings can be detected in the stance of some newspapers and intellectuals in Heraklion, as well as in the Municipality of the same city, in the years just after 1900. Voices asking for the protection of individual Venetian buildings due to their artistic and historical merits appeared. The author connects this change in attitudes towards Venetian buildings to the arrival of the Italian Archaeological Mission of Crete, its influence towards local intellectuals, but also to the pressures that the Italian government exerted through the Real Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti to the Cretan government.
Life Outside the Canon - Hommage to Foteini Vlachou (1975-2017), Revista de História da Arte, 9, 2021, p. 34-47., 2021
The paper concentrates on the contradictions we are confronted with when trying to interpret the ... more The paper concentrates on the contradictions we are confronted with when trying to interpret the stylistic choices made by the Venetian Provveditore Generale of Crete, Francesco Morosini, for an urbanisation project he implemented during his service (1625‑1628) in the centre of the capital city of Venetian Crete, i.e. Candia, present-day Heraklion. The urbanisation project included a public loggia and an aqueduct and fountain. In this paper, it is argued that the deliberately “anachronistic” architectural style of the loggia can be interpreted through the commissioner’s connection to the Venetian politics of the time. The extravagant design and lavish decoration of the fountain, on the other hand, indicate that the Venetian official, being in the periphery, could be more eclectic and did not feel obliged to be consistent with the ideology that guided him to choose the more sober and static design for the loggia.
στο Άρης Σαραφιανός, Παναγιώτης Ιωάννου (επ.), Ερευνητικά ζητήματα στην ιστορία της τέχνης: Από τ... more στο Άρης Σαραφιανός, Παναγιώτης Ιωάννου (επ.), Ερευνητικά ζητήματα στην ιστορία της τέχνης: Από τον ύστερο Μεσαίωνα μέχρι τις μέρες μας, Εκδόσεις Ασίνη, Αθήνα 2016, σελ. 61-72.
The challenge of the object: 33rd congress of the International Committee of the History of Art, 15th - 20th, Germanischen Nationalmuseums, July 2012, Series Wissenschaftliche Beibände zum Anzeiger des Germanischen Nationalmuseums, vol. 32 Parts 4 ., 2013
Μπορείτε να παρακολουθήσετε την ημερίδα εδώ:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDS6KHIpCWo
https:... more Μπορείτε να παρακολουθήσετε την ημερίδα εδώ:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDS6KHIpCWo https://youtu.be/IWit05wrVLU Η ημερίδα πραγματοποιείται στο πλαίσιο της έρευνας «Ο ρόλος των Μεγάλων Δυνάμεων στις τύχες των βενετικών μνημείων στην Κρήτη κατά το πρώτο τέταρτο του 20ού αιώνα», της Δρ. Σοφίας Κατόπη, που χρηματοδοτείται από το Κεντρο Ερευνας για τις Ανθρωπιστικες Επιστημες (ΚΕΑΕ) για το έτος 2021.
Art in the Periphery, Annual Workshop 2016-2017, 6 December 2016
This paper will focus on the ways a new architectural language was introduced to the Venetian col... more This paper will focus on the ways a new architectural language was introduced to the Venetian colony of Crete in the last quarter of the sixteenth century and the reasons it was quickly adopted by different patrons for all kinds of buildings, public and private, secular and religious. It will also address problems concerning style, terminology and periodization.
CIHA 2012, 33rd Congress of the International Committee of the History of Art, Germanisches National Museum, Nürnberg, 2012
Attitudes to historical monuments in Greece have been determined by the importance antiquity had ... more Attitudes to historical monuments in Greece have been determined by the importance antiquity had for the emergent Greek state in the nineteenth century, following the uprising against the Ottoman empire. In its effort to legitimize its claim to independence and proclaim the nation’s unity, the new Greek state drew upon the “glorious past”. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the medieval period was incorporated into the national narrative ensuring the necessary intermediary link to a centuries-long chain of Greek civilization. This idea of continuity was essential to the construction of the Greek national identity. On the other hand, in this tripartite ordering of Greek history, from antiquity via Byzantium to the modern period (beginning with the Greek Revolution in 1821), buildings constructed during times of foreign domination, like the Venetian or Ottoman, were not included in the monuments considered representative of the culture and identity of the nation. When in the late twentieth century the heritage of the Venetian period began to acquire greater significance, many of these monuments had already been demolished. In this paper, the loggia of Candia (present-day Herakleion) and the clock tower of Rethymnon will be used as case studies in order to investigate the changing attitudes towards the Venetian heritage of Crete, which during the twentieth century went from devaluation to praise. Both buildings were demolished, but a replica of the former was completed by the mid 1980’s, housing now the city hall of Herakleion. The reconstruction was given an award in 1987 by Europa Nostra and it now comprises one of the iconic monuments of the city, a landmark found on every tourist guide. The recent initiative in Rethymnon to reconstruct the Venetian clock tower, which was demolished in 1945, points in the same direction: the reinvention of an iconic monument which demonstrates the town’s new pride for its Venetian heritage.
Stato da Mar: Art, Antiquities and Cultural Exchange in the Venetian Maritime Empire, 6 July 2011, Università Ca’ Foscari, Venice, Aula Baratto
There is a big discrepancy between testimonies from written sources of the Venetian period in Cre... more There is a big discrepancy between testimonies from written sources of the Venetian period in Crete concerning western art on the island (painting, sculpture, architecture) and the actual surviving evidence. In an attempt to rediscover the extent and nature of the Western art that reached Crete or was created there during the four and a half centuries of Venetian domination, we have attempted to document the sculpture and stone carving now to be found on the island. The project “Western art in Crete” run by the Institute of Mediterranean Studies will be presented along with the questions posed by the recorded material.
The public loggia was among the first buildings that the Venetians erected in the piazza of San M... more The public loggia was among the first buildings that the Venetians erected in the piazza of San Marco in Candia, the capital of their new colony of Crete. As archival records testify, it was already considered a symbol of the Venetian domination as early as 1269 when armed feudatories gathered in front of the loggia to demonstrate their opposition to decisions taken by the administration.
A ground plan from Venice’s Archivio di Stato records a loggia built during the sixteenth century, which does not survive, since between 1625 and 1630, it was replaced by a new public loggia. In the beginning of the twentieth century, this seventeenth-century loggia was considered ‘damaged beyond repair’ and was demolished. A replica of the building was constructed later on.
The seventeenth-century loggia of Candia, known today from photographs taken at the beginning of the twentieth century, belongs stylistically to the sixteenth century, with a Doric order arcade on the ground floor and an ionic one on the storey. This presentation will demonstrate that the stylistic choice of a ‘renaissance loggia’ built well into the seventeenth century, in addition to the Doric order, rustication and ornamentation of the metopes with war-trophies and lions of St. Mark, not only emphasized the militant character of the public building, but also exalted the triumphant character of Serenissima’s rule in Candia by alluding directly to St. Mark’s square in Venice. Moreover, the question of the building’s all’antica decoration will be addressed, especially in relation to the Venetian hunt for antiquities in Crete.
This paper discusses the context of the presence of different Russian ecclesiastical utensils, su... more This paper discusses the context of the presence of different Russian ecclesiastical utensils, such as epitaphs, priests’ vestments and Eucharistic vessels, found in churches and monasteries in the Rethymno prefecture at the time of Cretan Autonomy (1898-1913). Rethymno district came under Russian administration between 1897 and 1909 and for this reason it was selected as a case study of the ERC research project RICONTRANS: Visual Culture, Piety and Propaganda: Transfer and Reception of Russian Religious Art in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean (16th – early 20th c.). The main contribution of the paper is the research about the transfer and acquisition mechanisms, as well as the mappings of the Russian liturgical objects in light of their relations towards different political and social circumstances, taking into consideration that the island of Crete never had the intense commercial relations with Russia like other parts of Greece. The author connects her findings with the wider political context, like the strategies of preserving and supporting Orthodoxy against Catholic and Protestant propaganda, recognizing it as the key political instrument of the so-called "soft power" for the influence of Imperial Russia in the region.
Τ. Κιουσοπούλου, Β. Φωσκόλου (επιμ.), Grata Dona. Μελέτες προς τιμήν της Όλγας Γκράτζιου, Πανεπιστημιακές Εκδόσεις Κρήτης, Ηράκλειο, 269-294, 2023
"'Towards the beautification of the city and the improvement of the health of its residents’: Mod... more "'Towards the beautification of the city and the improvement of the health of its residents’: Modernization and demolitions of monuments during the early years of Cretan Autonomy" The subject of the article is the alteration of the landscapes of Cretan cities achieved through demolitions of various Venetian and Ottoman buildings during the early years of the Cretan Autonomy period (1898-1913). Using information from the State Archives and local newspapers the author investigates the role played by the “protecting” Great Powers (England, France, Italy and Russia), who in cooperation with the Cretan government, partook in the modernization process of the Cretan cities and the demolitions that it involved. The buildings that constitute the focal point of the article are the Venetian fortifications and the Ottoman kiosks (protruding bay windows). They were criticized for not letting the air freely circulate in the cities and not allowing the sunlight to get through, thus causing health problems to the inhabitants. In addition, the Venetian walls were accused for not letting the cities develop freely, while at the same time hindering the communications with the countryside and the access to the ports. Needless to say, these arguments against city walls had been used with the exact same words in order to demolish the walls of major European cities in the 19th century. In Crete though, the modernization rhetoric acquired a nationalistic overtone, as the buildings to be demolished were considered “foreign” to the Greek civilization and were accused of reminding brutal times of slavery of the Cretan people. This rhetoric gradually developed into an important argument for those supporting that the modernization of the cities could not progress unless the old buildings were demolished. At the same time, the demolitions provoked the indignation of one of the “protecting” powers, the Italians, who considered the Venetian buildings part of their own national heritage. Thus, in Italian magazines and newspapers of the period, Cretans were rendered as barbarians destroying important monuments, while at the same time, Italian irredentist claims were insinuated over Crete. What is interesting, is that a change in the attitude towards Venetian buildings can be detected in the stance of some newspapers and intellectuals in Heraklion, as well as in the Municipality of the same city, in the years just after 1900. Voices asking for the protection of individual Venetian buildings due to their artistic and historical merits appeared. The author connects this change in attitudes towards Venetian buildings to the arrival of the Italian Archaeological Mission of Crete, its influence towards local intellectuals, but also to the pressures that the Italian government exerted through the Real Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti to the Cretan government.
Life Outside the Canon - Hommage to Foteini Vlachou (1975-2017), Revista de História da Arte, 9, 2021, p. 34-47., 2021
The paper concentrates on the contradictions we are confronted with when trying to interpret the ... more The paper concentrates on the contradictions we are confronted with when trying to interpret the stylistic choices made by the Venetian Provveditore Generale of Crete, Francesco Morosini, for an urbanisation project he implemented during his service (1625‑1628) in the centre of the capital city of Venetian Crete, i.e. Candia, present-day Heraklion. The urbanisation project included a public loggia and an aqueduct and fountain. In this paper, it is argued that the deliberately “anachronistic” architectural style of the loggia can be interpreted through the commissioner’s connection to the Venetian politics of the time. The extravagant design and lavish decoration of the fountain, on the other hand, indicate that the Venetian official, being in the periphery, could be more eclectic and did not feel obliged to be consistent with the ideology that guided him to choose the more sober and static design for the loggia.
στο Άρης Σαραφιανός, Παναγιώτης Ιωάννου (επ.), Ερευνητικά ζητήματα στην ιστορία της τέχνης: Από τ... more στο Άρης Σαραφιανός, Παναγιώτης Ιωάννου (επ.), Ερευνητικά ζητήματα στην ιστορία της τέχνης: Από τον ύστερο Μεσαίωνα μέχρι τις μέρες μας, Εκδόσεις Ασίνη, Αθήνα 2016, σελ. 61-72.
The challenge of the object: 33rd congress of the International Committee of the History of Art, 15th - 20th, Germanischen Nationalmuseums, July 2012, Series Wissenschaftliche Beibände zum Anzeiger des Germanischen Nationalmuseums, vol. 32 Parts 4 ., 2013
Uploads
Conference Presentations by Sofia Katopi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDS6KHIpCWo
https://youtu.be/IWit05wrVLU
Η ημερίδα πραγματοποιείται στο πλαίσιο της έρευνας «Ο ρόλος των Μεγάλων Δυνάμεων στις τύχες των βενετικών μνημείων στην Κρήτη κατά το πρώτο τέταρτο του 20ού αιώνα», της Δρ. Σοφίας Κατόπη, που χρηματοδοτείται από το Κεντρο Ερευνας για τις Ανθρωπιστικες Επιστημες (ΚΕΑΕ) για το έτος 2021.
In this paper, the loggia of Candia (present-day Herakleion) and the clock tower of Rethymnon will be used as case studies in order to investigate the changing attitudes towards the Venetian heritage of Crete, which during the twentieth century went from devaluation to praise. Both buildings were demolished, but a replica of the former was completed by the mid 1980’s, housing now the city hall of Herakleion. The reconstruction was given an award in 1987 by Europa Nostra and it now comprises one of the iconic monuments of the city, a landmark found on every tourist guide. The recent initiative in Rethymnon to reconstruct the Venetian clock tower, which was demolished in 1945, points in the same direction: the reinvention of an iconic monument which demonstrates the town’s new pride for its Venetian heritage.
A ground plan from Venice’s Archivio di Stato records a loggia built during the sixteenth century, which does not survive, since between 1625 and 1630, it was replaced by a new public loggia. In the beginning of the twentieth century, this seventeenth-century loggia was considered ‘damaged beyond repair’ and was demolished. A replica of the building was constructed later on.
The seventeenth-century loggia of Candia, known today from photographs taken at the beginning of the twentieth century, belongs stylistically to the sixteenth century, with a Doric order arcade on the ground floor and an ionic one on the storey. This presentation will demonstrate that the stylistic choice of a ‘renaissance loggia’ built well into the seventeenth century, in addition to the Doric order, rustication and ornamentation of the metopes with war-trophies and lions of St. Mark, not only emphasized the militant character of the public building, but also exalted the triumphant character of Serenissima’s rule in Candia by alluding directly to St. Mark’s square in Venice. Moreover, the question of the building’s all’antica decoration will be addressed, especially in relation to the Venetian hunt for antiquities in Crete.
Papers by Sofia Katopi
The subject of the article is the alteration of the landscapes of Cretan cities achieved through demolitions of various Venetian and Ottoman buildings during the early years of the Cretan Autonomy period (1898-1913). Using information from the State Archives and local newspapers the author investigates the role played by the “protecting” Great Powers (England, France, Italy and Russia), who in cooperation with the Cretan government, partook in the modernization process of the Cretan cities and the demolitions that it involved. The buildings that constitute the focal point of the article are the Venetian fortifications and the Ottoman kiosks (protruding bay windows). They were criticized for not letting the air freely circulate in the cities and not allowing the sunlight to get through, thus causing health problems to the inhabitants. In addition, the Venetian walls were accused for not letting the cities develop freely, while at the same time hindering the communications with the countryside and the access to the ports. Needless to say, these arguments against city walls had been used with the exact same words in order to demolish the walls of major European cities in the 19th century. In Crete though, the modernization rhetoric acquired a nationalistic overtone, as the buildings to be demolished were considered “foreign” to the Greek civilization and were accused of reminding brutal times of slavery of the Cretan people. This rhetoric gradually developed into an important argument for those supporting that the modernization of the cities could not progress unless the old buildings were demolished. At the same time, the demolitions provoked the indignation of one of the “protecting” powers, the Italians, who considered the Venetian buildings part of their own national heritage. Thus, in Italian magazines and newspapers of the period, Cretans were rendered as barbarians destroying important monuments, while at the same time, Italian irredentist claims were insinuated over Crete. What is interesting, is that a change in the attitude towards Venetian buildings can be detected in the stance of some newspapers and intellectuals in Heraklion, as well as in the Municipality of the same city, in the years just after 1900. Voices asking for the protection of individual Venetian buildings due to their artistic and historical merits appeared. The author connects this change in attitudes towards Venetian buildings to the arrival of the Italian Archaeological Mission of Crete, its influence towards local intellectuals, but also to the pressures that the Italian government exerted through the Real Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti to the Cretan government.
be more eclectic and did not feel obliged to be consistent with
the ideology that guided him to choose the more sober and
static design for the loggia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDS6KHIpCWo
https://youtu.be/IWit05wrVLU
Η ημερίδα πραγματοποιείται στο πλαίσιο της έρευνας «Ο ρόλος των Μεγάλων Δυνάμεων στις τύχες των βενετικών μνημείων στην Κρήτη κατά το πρώτο τέταρτο του 20ού αιώνα», της Δρ. Σοφίας Κατόπη, που χρηματοδοτείται από το Κεντρο Ερευνας για τις Ανθρωπιστικες Επιστημες (ΚΕΑΕ) για το έτος 2021.
In this paper, the loggia of Candia (present-day Herakleion) and the clock tower of Rethymnon will be used as case studies in order to investigate the changing attitudes towards the Venetian heritage of Crete, which during the twentieth century went from devaluation to praise. Both buildings were demolished, but a replica of the former was completed by the mid 1980’s, housing now the city hall of Herakleion. The reconstruction was given an award in 1987 by Europa Nostra and it now comprises one of the iconic monuments of the city, a landmark found on every tourist guide. The recent initiative in Rethymnon to reconstruct the Venetian clock tower, which was demolished in 1945, points in the same direction: the reinvention of an iconic monument which demonstrates the town’s new pride for its Venetian heritage.
A ground plan from Venice’s Archivio di Stato records a loggia built during the sixteenth century, which does not survive, since between 1625 and 1630, it was replaced by a new public loggia. In the beginning of the twentieth century, this seventeenth-century loggia was considered ‘damaged beyond repair’ and was demolished. A replica of the building was constructed later on.
The seventeenth-century loggia of Candia, known today from photographs taken at the beginning of the twentieth century, belongs stylistically to the sixteenth century, with a Doric order arcade on the ground floor and an ionic one on the storey. This presentation will demonstrate that the stylistic choice of a ‘renaissance loggia’ built well into the seventeenth century, in addition to the Doric order, rustication and ornamentation of the metopes with war-trophies and lions of St. Mark, not only emphasized the militant character of the public building, but also exalted the triumphant character of Serenissima’s rule in Candia by alluding directly to St. Mark’s square in Venice. Moreover, the question of the building’s all’antica decoration will be addressed, especially in relation to the Venetian hunt for antiquities in Crete.
The subject of the article is the alteration of the landscapes of Cretan cities achieved through demolitions of various Venetian and Ottoman buildings during the early years of the Cretan Autonomy period (1898-1913). Using information from the State Archives and local newspapers the author investigates the role played by the “protecting” Great Powers (England, France, Italy and Russia), who in cooperation with the Cretan government, partook in the modernization process of the Cretan cities and the demolitions that it involved. The buildings that constitute the focal point of the article are the Venetian fortifications and the Ottoman kiosks (protruding bay windows). They were criticized for not letting the air freely circulate in the cities and not allowing the sunlight to get through, thus causing health problems to the inhabitants. In addition, the Venetian walls were accused for not letting the cities develop freely, while at the same time hindering the communications with the countryside and the access to the ports. Needless to say, these arguments against city walls had been used with the exact same words in order to demolish the walls of major European cities in the 19th century. In Crete though, the modernization rhetoric acquired a nationalistic overtone, as the buildings to be demolished were considered “foreign” to the Greek civilization and were accused of reminding brutal times of slavery of the Cretan people. This rhetoric gradually developed into an important argument for those supporting that the modernization of the cities could not progress unless the old buildings were demolished. At the same time, the demolitions provoked the indignation of one of the “protecting” powers, the Italians, who considered the Venetian buildings part of their own national heritage. Thus, in Italian magazines and newspapers of the period, Cretans were rendered as barbarians destroying important monuments, while at the same time, Italian irredentist claims were insinuated over Crete. What is interesting, is that a change in the attitude towards Venetian buildings can be detected in the stance of some newspapers and intellectuals in Heraklion, as well as in the Municipality of the same city, in the years just after 1900. Voices asking for the protection of individual Venetian buildings due to their artistic and historical merits appeared. The author connects this change in attitudes towards Venetian buildings to the arrival of the Italian Archaeological Mission of Crete, its influence towards local intellectuals, but also to the pressures that the Italian government exerted through the Real Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti to the Cretan government.
be more eclectic and did not feel obliged to be consistent with
the ideology that guided him to choose the more sober and
static design for the loggia.