Candia and Canea: the walls, the churches, the outer burghs,

VENICE AND THE URBAN CENTRES IN VENETIAN-HELD GREEK LANDS ABSTRACT During the early centuries of the Venetian domination of Crete (which covers the extended period from 1211 through 1669), Candia and Canea were small cities with great strategic importance, both military and commercial, and in rapid demographic expansion. One of the most significant aspects in the urban history of the two cities is the relationship that was established between the ancient city and its burghs. I would thus like to define the principal phases of this expansion and examine the conduct of the Republic in relation to these transformations, which involved religious, civil and military architecture in equal measure. The urban development of the city of Candia and Canea is comparable though their origins differ: Canea, as is well known, is a “founded” city, part of a colonization plan for the territory of punta Spada. The 1252 document that constitutes the point of departure for the “reconstruction” of the city determines its finalities and activation modes along the guidelines established and used elsewhere by the Municipality of Venice. Shortly thereafter, around 1350, the city was extended with the construction of new walls that, with the exception of the XVI century technical improvements, would remain the same until the Ottoman conquest in 1645. An altogether different case is Candia, where in the second half of the thirteenth century (as Gerola’s research has long shown) there were burghs beyond the city limits that grew rapidly at least through the middle of the following century. Nevertheless, the need to defend the burghs did not arise until 1462, and was not implemented until much later. The reasons that led to the diverging attitudes by the Dominante may be found primarily in the overall framework of the works promoted by Venice in the Eastern colonies (in this context I will also exhibit a heretofore unpublished drawing of the city of Corfù). However I would like to suggest several other reasons more specifically related to the urban development of Candia and Canea. Using the principal cartographic sources of the two cities between the XV and the XVII century and comparing them with the data that may be deduced from different types of documents, I would like to try and define the situation of the burghs in the two cities. In particular, examining several documents relative to the churches of Candia that have heretofore been relatively ignored by scholars of urban history (the Ms. Lat.Cl. IX 179 (=3284) at the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice) I offer a reconstruction of the dynamics of development of the burghs of Candia between the early XIV century and the mid XV century. I would thus like to suggest that the decision to extend the wall system of Candia in 1462 must be considered as motivated by the military defense of the city, but also by the city administration, particularly because this innovation led to a change in the regime of the urban land.