Patras Castle #1053

Description

After the devastating earthquake of 551, the Byzantine emperor Justinian constructed the fortress utilizing pre-Christian building materials.

After then, the fort was continuously occupied until the Second World War. It was besieged by Slavs, Saracens, Normans, and many others during the Byzantine era, but it never succumbed. In particular, the city's patron saint, Saint Andrew, was credited with the victorious rejection of a large siege in 805 AD by the Arabs and Slavs.
It was taken over by the Franks in 1205, during the Fourth Crusade, and they reinforced it even more by creating a moat around all three sides.

The local Latin (Catholic) Archbishop received it as collateral from the Principality of Achaea in 1278, and in 1408 the Pope leased it to the Venetians for a period of five years. The fortress was held by the Latin Archbishop until 1430, when Constantine Palaiologos, the Despot of the Morea and the last Byzantine emperor, acquired it and repaired the walls extensively.

After falling to the Ottoman Turks in 1458, the citadel served as one of their principal strongholds in the Peloponnese during the Tourkokratia. During the Morean War in 1687, the Venetians seized the fortress and held it until the Turks retook the Morea in 1715.