Mendenitsa or Bodonitsa Castle

Μετάφραση Greek Version

Mendenitsa or Bodonitsa Castle

A Frankish castle in the village of Mendenitsa at the north slopes of mountain Kallidromon, right above the passage of Thermopylae.

History

The castle was built in 1204 by the Lombard knight Guido Pallavicini who had become marquess of Bodonitsa under the “king of Thessalonica” Boniface of Montferrat after the fall of Constantinople in 1204, at the beginning of the Frankish occupation of Greece. Later, after the downfal of the kingdom of Thessalonica in 1224, Mendenitsa became somehow autonomous, though a vassal of the Principality of Achaea. The state survived when in 1311 the Catalans became rulers of the Duchy of Athens. In 1335 the Venetian Niccolo I Zorzi became the lord of Mendenitsa after his marriage with the last descendant of the Pallavicini family, Guglielma, known as “The Lady of Thermopylae”.

The Ottomans captured the castle in 20th June 1414. The last marquis Niccolo II Zorzi fled to Venice. Under Turkish rule, Mendenitsa gradually declined as it lost its strategic value after the prevalence of the Ottomans all over Greece. The castle was taken by the Greeks in the first months of the Greek Revolution in 1821.

 

Source: Kastrologos