Greece · Partial ruin
New Navarino Fortress
New Navarino (Neokastro) is an Ottoman-built coastal fortress guarding the southern entrance to the Bay of Pylos, with a separate older Crusader castle at the bay's northern mouth. The complex comprises thick sloped curtain walls with multiple bastions, a citadel linked by a long southern wall, and an inner settlement whose remains lie within the walls.
Its prime
1573
Today
Partial ruin
As it stood in 1573
What New Navarino Fortress looked like in its prime.
A low-profile, trace italienne fortress of pale beige limestone with thick sloped curtain walls and multiple angular bastions (including two dominant seaward bastions). A raised citadel sits within, connected to a seaward bastion by a long straight southern curtain (the “Great Bough”), and protected by a dry moat; inner walls are pierced by regular arched doorways and small windows around a broad grassed parade courtyard. Surviving mosque structure sits against the inner wall.
Its story
The story of New Navarino Fortress.
The Ottoman Kapudan Pasha Uluç Ali Reis built New Navarino in 1572/3, shortly after the Battle of Lepanto, to guard the southern entrance of the Bay of Pylos; the northern entrance was covered by the 13th-century Old Navarino castle of the Crusader Principality of Achaea. Unlike its medieval neighbour, Neokastro incorporates the lessons of gunpowder warfare: trace italienne walls, thick and sloped, strengthened with bastions, the 'Seventh' and 'Santa Maria' covering the harbour, and a citadel with six pentagonal bastions and almost 60 guns, linked by the long southern wall called the Great Bough.
Navarino served as a base for the Ottoman invasion of Crete in 1645, at the opening of the Cretan War. During the Morean War the Republic of Venice under Francesco Morosini captured both Navarino fortresses in 1686 and held them until the Ottomans retook the Peloponnese in 1715. Russian forces took the fortress after a six-day siege in April 1770, during the Orlov revolt, but abandoned it by June, destroying it in part. Only ruins survive of the settlement inside the walls, except the mosque, converted after Greek independence into an Orthodox church of the Transfiguration.
Step inside
8 places to explore in 1573.
The record describes 8 distinct spots at New Navarino Fortress, including 2 interiors: fortress mosque (later transfiguration church), interior, inner settlement, streets and service ranges. 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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