Kastanitsa

Kastanitsa is a Tsakonian mountain village set at an altitude of 840 m, surrounded by chestnut forests, fir and plane trees. It is built on either side of a valley formed east of Mount Parnon (Malevos). The area occupied a strategic position: the route from the Argolid that passed through Kynouria and ended in the Laconian plain used the Anania pass on the summit of Mount Parnon. Τhe Τower at the northern edge of the settlement had a panoramic view right to the Argolid Gulf.

            Both Polybius and Pausanias mention a settlement called Pentala, the ruins of which have been identified in the area of ​​Kastanitsa. The combination of this settlement with Bezeniko or Benteniko, according to legend, created the settlement of Kastanitsa. In the sources, the place was first mentioned as Kastanitsa in a chrysobull of Andronikos II Palaiologos in 1293 to the Metropolitan of Monemvasia. A further reference as Kastanitsa is in an argyrobull of 1430 and 1437 of the Bishop Theodore Palaiologos, with reference to the administrative and economic privileges of the inhabitants of Monemvasia.

As we are informed by a reference in the list of 1467, this position was in the hands of the Venetians. Kastanitsa was conquered by Turks in 1540, while after 1685 it returned to the Venetians. A mention of the place as Castanizza is also met with in the Venetian census of 1704, although it is mistakenly included in the province of Mistral, and not in that of Chrysafa.

On the northern edge of the village stand the ruins of a tower, probably built by the Byzantines of Mistra. This is known as the "Tower of Kapsampeli": after Captain Giannis Kapsampeli, who in 1826 fortified it with the help of his fellow fighters to repel the attack of Ibrahim.

Χρονολόγηση: Tower: Frankish/Late Byzantine period (13th-15th centuries); Tower-houses: Ottoman/Venetian periods (15th-19th centuries).

The settlement retains a traditional character. The tower-houses are roofed in local slate. They have three floors, small wooden balconies, small windows and some loop-holes.

The rock at the entrance of the settlement, to one approaching it from Sitaina, is inaccessible. Access to it is only possible by a path that starts in the village. On the top of the hill are the remains of the Tower. It had three storeys. When the tower was restored in 1821 by the rebel Giannis Tsolinas the gun-loops were added. The building was blown up at the time of the Civil War, though most of it was later repaired. A younger wall surrounds the west part of the plateau on the rock.

Kastanitsa is a traditional settlement, legally protected by YA 11707/06.14.1966 - Government Gazette 429/ B/08.07.1966; and YA 10977/05.16.1967 - Government Gazette 352/B/31.5.1967.

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