The Venetian period lasted for three centuries, during which time Koroni and Methoni, or Coron and Modon?the first Venetian possessions on the Greek mainland?became, in the words of a Venetian document, "the receptacle and special nest of all our gal...

At the time of the fall of Constantinople to the Fourth Crusade, one of the Crusaders, Geoffrey of Villehardouin, was shipwrecked near Methoni, and he spent the winter of 1204/5 there. He came into contact with a local Greek magnate?identified by som...