Greece · Partial ruin
Gardiki Castle, Corfu
Gardiki Castle is a 13th-century Byzantine fortress on the southwestern coast of Corfu. Its curtain walls form an octagon pierced by eight square towers, and it guarded the island's southern lowlands. The site sits on a low hill just north of Korissia Lake near the village of Agios Matthaios.
Its prime
1250
Today
Partial ruin
As it stood in 1250
What Gardiki Castle, Corfu looked like in its prime.
The castle is an octagonal stone enceinte with eight square towers rising from an almost elliptical outline; each tower is decorated with horizontal rows of tiles set into the masonry. The southern tower’s summit contains the remains of a small chapel with painted saintly portraits. The main entrance through the curtain wall is still identifiable. The structure stands on a low hill above a narrow coastal lagoon (Korissia Lake) with the village of Agios Matthaios uphill behind it.
Its story
The story of Gardiki Castle, Corfu.
A Thirteenth-Century Castle on Palaeolithic Ground
Gardiki dates from the thirteenth century, set on a low hill near the village of Agios Matthaios, which sits at a higher elevation above it. Which ruler ordered the work is not known; it is assumed to have been either Michael I Komnenos Doukas or his son Michael II, rulers of the Despotate of Epirus. Immediately south of the walls lies Korissia Lake, divided from the sea by a narrow strip of land.
People had used the ground long before the despots. The rock shelter of Grava Gardikiou, on the castle site, yielded Upper Palaeolithic remains dating from 20,000 BC, when Corfu was still joined to the mainland region of Epirus: hunter-gatherer stone tools and animal bones, since removed to the Archaeological Museum of Corfu.
One Corner of the Triangle That Held Corfu Before 1401
Gardiki is the only medieval fortress surviving on the southern part of Corfu, and it was one of three castles that defended the island before the Venetian era, which ran from 1401 to 1797. The three formed a triangular line: Gardiki guarding the south, Kassiopi Castle the northeast, and Angelokastro the northwest. Placed at the narrow southwestern flank of the island, Gardiki covered the fields and the southern lowlands.
Marmora's Della Historia di Corfù, 1672
The Corfiot nobleman Andrea Marmora, reckoned the first historian of Corfu's medieval centuries, recorded in his book of 1672, Della Historia di Corfù, that the despots of Epirus adorned the city of Corfu with "the most noble buildings" and raised defences elsewhere on the island, Gardiki and Angelokastro among the sites he names.
The Octagon of Eight Towers
The walls form an octagon, almost elliptical in outline, with eight square towers decorated by rows of tiles. Material from an ancient structure, probably a fountain-house, was worked into the fabric. At the top of the southern tower are traces of a chapel, with remnants of religious frescoes of portraits of saints. The interior is ruined and the entrance is preserved, though the towers still retain their full height.
Gardiki is counted among the most imposing architectural remains of the Ionian Islands, alongside Angelokastro, Kassiopi Castle and the two Venetian fortresses of Corfu City, the Citadel and the New Fort. The site falls within the Southern Corfu Municipality and is designated an archaeological site of Greece.
Step inside
8 places to explore in 1250.
The record describes 8 distinct spots at Gardiki Castle, Corfu, including 2 interiors: inner courtyard, top of southern tower and chapel traces. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
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