Mystras

In the years after the Fourth Crusade, Frankish knights conquered the Peloponnese, then called the Morea. In late 1248 William II of Villehardouin, prince of Achaea, took Monemvasia, the last Byzantine outpost there, and over the winter of 1248 to 1249 chose sites for new castles. Near Lacedaemon, ancient Sparta, he built a fortress on a 620 m spur of Mount Taygetos that came to be known as Mystras.

In 1259 William was captured by the Nicaean emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos at the Battle of Pelagonia, and in 1262 he handed over Mystras, Monemvasia and Grand Magne in exchange for his release. Mystras became the seat of Byzantine rule in the Morea, and the people of exposed Lacedaemon moved to a new town below the fortress. From the middle of the 14th century it was the capital of the Despotate of the Morea and its churches were covered in frescoes. The philosopher Gemistos Plethon taught there until his death in 1452, and Constantine XI, the last Byzantine emperor, was despot at Mystras before he took the throne.

In 1460 the last despot, Demetrios Palaiologos, surrendered the city to Sultan Mehmed II. Apart from a Venetian occupation from 1687 to 1715, the Ottomans held it until 1821. It was looted in 1770 after joining the Orlov revolt and destroyed in 1825 by Egyptian forces under Ibrahim, and in the 1830s its people moved to the newly built town of Sparta. The ruins were inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1989; the only residents today are the nuns of the Pantanassa Monastery.