This is a very particular castle, quite different from the castles on the other islands of the South Aegean.
It is also called the Castle of Astroplia or the Castle of Querini.

It was built by the Venetian family of Querini on the ancient acropolis. It took its final form in the 15th century.
It is built with traditional local dark stone and is surrounded by white houses, the outer walls of which create a real wall, with small windows for loopholes. With a strong fortress character to protect the residents from pirates, it has visibility to the two natural harbors of the island.

Inside the castle are two newer churches with stone bell towers, of Panagia tou Kastrou (1853) and Agios Georgios (1790).

History

In 1207, Astypalaia was granted as a fief by Marco Sanudo, Duke of Naxos and Lord of the Cyclades, to Count Giovanni Querini. It is not clear whether the Querini had actually settled on the island since the early 13th century, but, in any case, in 1269 they lost it when the knight Licario (a Greek-Italian adventurer from Euboea) captured it on behalf of the Byzantines.

In 1310 Giovanni Querini II managed to retake the island, probably with the help of Marco Grimani (the Grimanis later appear to have rights to the island).
However, the 14th century was a time of increased piracy. In 1341 Astypalaia became the target of Turkish pirates who invaded from Asia Minor, led by the emir of Aydin, Omar Bey. The destruction was such that the island was completely abandoned for many years.

In 1413, Venice appointed Giovanni IV Querini as governor of Tinos and Mykonos, who took advantage of the opportunity to revive his ancestral fiefdom in Astypalaia and transferred the population from Tinos and Mykonos to inhabit the deserted island. Venice reacted, dismissed Querini as governor and demanded the cancellation of the relocation, as the other two islands had been emptied of people. Nevertheless, the settlement of the inhabitants was not canceled and Querini remained lord of Astypalaia. At that time, with the financial support of the Grimanis, he began to rebuild the castle, which had probably existed there since earlier times.
The official inauguration of the new castle took place much later, in 1453. Of course, other repairs and additions must have been made in later times, but the layout and spatial structure of the castle must not have changed much since then.

In 1494, the Duchy of Naxos and the Cyclades with Astypalaia were directly subordinated to Venice. The rule of the Venetians and the Querini on the island ended in 1537, after the raid of Hayreddin Barbarossa, who had plundered and devastated most of the Aegean and Ionian islands that year. The new situation was finalized in 1540 with the Venice-Turkey peace treaty at the end of the Third Venetian-Turkish War.

Thus, from 1540 until the 19th century, Astypalaia belonged to the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish fleet landed once a year from Constantinople to collect taxes, but the rest of the time it left the islanders to fend for themselves against the pirates. Thus, the inhabitants of Astypalaia had to coexist with the pirates, in cooperation with whom they found relative security, as well as economic benefits. The castle was perfectly adapted to this way of life and it seems to have remained the main part of the settlement of the country for hundreds of years.
Until the 19th century it was the only settlement on the island. All the houses outside this were called “stables”.

In the 19th century, the first post-revolutionary Greek government, of Ioannis Kapodistrias, made combating piracy its first concern. Greek warships systematically launched control of the maritime area of ​​the borders of the newly established state. Along with the free islands, the then Ottoman-ruled islands also benefited, piracy declined and gradually disappeared.

Thus in the 19th century and the early 20th, when there was greater security, the openings in the fortified enclosure were widened and wooden balconies were added to many house, while in the early 20th century, its residents began to go out, feeling safe, outside it and settle in the surrounding area. In 1943, it began to be abandoned by its residents, and finally everybody left after the devastating earthquake of 1956.

When the great earthquake of 1956 struck (7.5 magnitude, raising a 20-meter tidal wave in Astypalaia), most of the houses on the hill collapsed. The remaining buildings were abandoned by their residents and, stripped of their remaining wooden elements.

Structure, Fortification & Buildings

The castle is located on the top of a hill around which the town later developed, on a plateau with an area of ​​4,000 sq.m.

The only entrance to the castle is located on its southwest side and leads inside through a low, cross-vaulted space (photo 14) under the church of Panagia.

The entrance was a place for commercial transactions. In the first building to the left of the entrance, there was a cafe, a place for recreation and social contact. Inside the castle, in addition to residences, there were also blacksmith shops, carpentry shops and pottery workshops.

The houses of the castle were three-story. Each house included two or three single-room dwellings, that is, it housed two or three families.

The castle was densely populated at times. An average of 2,500 people lived in its 4000 sq.m., while it seems that its inhabitants reached sometimes 4,000. The houses were supplied with water from cisterns. The privileged castle houses that were near the Seráï had an excellent sewage system.

The “Seráï” (photo 13), a square tower with a perimeter of 18m at the southeastern end, was the main tower of the castle.

One of the most important recent buildings in the castle was the construction of the church of Panagia dedicated to the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary, Panagia of Portaitissa (photos 11,12). It was built in 1853 on the site of the Querini mansion.

Inside the castle is also the older church of Agios Georgios, built in 1790. The free space in front of the church was the blatsa (square) where the festivals and feasts of the castle town were held.

Sources