Fortezza of Rethymno

The Fortezza stands on Paleokastro hill — the 'Old Castle' — which had been the acropolis of ancient Rhithymna. Between the tenth and thirteenth centuries the Byzantines built a fortified settlement east of the hill, the Castrum Rethemi, with square towers and two gates; Enrico Pescatore repaired its defences early in the thirteenth century, and after Crete passed to the Republic of Venice the old settlement became known as the Castel Vecchio.

Under Venetian rule Rethymno gained a small harbour and grew into the third city of Crete after Heraklion and Chania. On 8 April 1540 work began on a circuit of town walls designed by the architect Michele Sanmicheli, completed around 1570 — and almost immediately found wanting. When Uluç Ali Reis attacked in 1571, the Ottomans captured and sacked the city.

The fall of Cyprus to the Ottomans in 1571 left Crete as Venice's largest remaining overseas possession, and the sack of Rethymno made new works urgent. The military engineer Sforza Pallavicini designed a fortress on the Italian bastioned system for the Paleokastro hill. Construction began on 13 September 1573 under the master builder Giannis Skordilis, of the Byzantine-Cretan Skordilis family, and was complete by 1580 — a labour that drew in 107,142 Cretans and 40,205 animals. Its irregular circuit runs 1,307 metres through four demi-bastions, named for St Nicolas, St Paul, St Elias and St Lucas.

The original plan was to demolish Rethymno's old walls and move the whole population inside, but the fortress proved too small to house the city. The landward walls were left standing, and the Fortezza became a citadel for the Venetian administration, to shelter the townspeople only if the Ottomans invaded. Despite later modifications it was never truly secure: it lacked a ditch and outworks, and its ramparts were rather low.

On 29 September 1646, during the Fifth Ottoman–Venetian War, an Ottoman force besieged Rethymno and the city's population took refuge inside the Fortezza. Conditions deteriorated fast — disease spread, and food and ammunition ran short — and on 13 November the Venetians surrendered under favourable terms.

The Ottomans changed little, adding only a ravelin outside the main gate and some houses for the garrison and the city's administration. The Cathedral of St Nicolas within the walls became the Mosque of Sultan Ibrahim. The fortress remained in use into the early twentieth century.

By the early twentieth century the Fortezza had filled with houses, and at one point the local prison was kept within its walls. After the Second World War the town expanded, residents moved out, and Rethymno's landward fortifications and many of the houses inside the citadel were demolished — though the Fortezza's own walls were left intact. What survived includes the mosque, the prisons of the Rector's residence, the Venetian Council Building, an armoury, two gunpowder magazines, several cisterns and two late nineteenth-century churches, St Theodore and St Catherine.

Large-scale restoration has been under way since the early 1990s under Greece's Ministry of Culture, and the citadel is open to the public. The Ottoman ravelin at the main gate now houses the Archaeological Museum of Rethymno, and the St Elias bastion holds the open-air Erofyli theatre, opened in 1993.