All images © by Roberto Piperno, owner of the domain. Text edited by Rosamie Moore. Write to romapip@quipo.it.
Notes:
Page revised in January 2017.
Rome in the Footsteps of an XVIIIth Century Traveller
- Serifo (Seriphos)(detail of a 1651 engraving by Marco Boschini)
 (1900 Times Atlas of the World) | Key dates: 1207 Marco Sanudo, a Venetian adventurer, conquers Nasso and founds the Duchy of Nasso which includes most of the Cycladic Islands: Serifo is partitioned among other Venetian families. In the early XVth century Alvise Michiel establishes his rule over the whole island. 1537 The Ottomans conquer Serifo |
Serifo, like nearby Sifno and Argentiera was known for its mines: these were exploited also in modern times and the island was the site of one of the first major Greek strikes (1916): it ended in bloodshed. The mines were eventually closed in the 1980s and this caused a dramatic economic crisis with a significant reduction of the island population.
View of Serifo (at sunset)
Chora, the main village, is located at the very top of a hill near a bay on the southern coast of the island; the old part is still clearly distinguishable from the later expansion of Chora on a lower terrace.
En route to the top
The houses which formed a sort of enclosure have been largely modified, but the access to the top of the hill through a series of narrow and long steps remains rather difficult.
Walls of the old fortifications
The walls of the fortifications have almost disappeared, but there is still a very old building clinging to the rock (left image).
Residence of the vice-consul of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (1819) and a 1433 coat of arms of the Michiel family on a house near the ruins of the castle
An unusually elegant house is decorated with a coat of arms of the Bourbon family: it was the residence of the vice-consul of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies: the inscription is in Italian, which was largely spoken in the Aegean Islands and was used as the official language for commercial transactions until the beginning of the XIXth century.
Introductory page on the Venetian Fortresses in Greece
List of the fortresses
You may refresh your knowledge of the history of Venice in the Levant by reading an abstract from
the History of Venice by Thomas Salmon, published in 1754. The Italian text is accompanied by an English summary.
Other pages/sections which might be of interest to you:
