MALVASIA (Gr. Monemvasia, i.e. the "

See also:

• CITY (through Fr. cite, from Lat. civitas)

city of the single approach or entrance "; Ital. Napoli di Malvasia; Turk. Mengeshe or Beneshe)  , one of the principal fortresses and commercial centres of the Levant during the middle ages, still represented by a considerable mass of ruins and a town of about 550 inhabitants . It stood on the east coast of the Morea, contiguous to the site of the ancient Epidaurus Limera, of which it took the place . So extensive was its trade in wine that the name of the place became familiar throughout Europe as the distinctive appellation of a special kind—Ital . Malvasia; Span . Malvagia; Fr . Malvoisie; Eng . Malvesie or Malmsey . The wine was not of local growth, but came for the most part from Tenos and others of the Cyclades . As a fortress Malvasia played an important part in the struggles between Byzantium, Venice and Turkey . The Byzantine emperors considered it one of their most valuable posts in the Morea, and rewarded its inhabitants for their fidelity by unusual privileges . Phrantzes (Lib . IV. cap. xvi.) tells how the emperor Maurice made the city (previously dependent in ecclesiastical matters on Corinth) a metropolis or archbishop's see, and how Alexius Comnenus, and more especially Andronicus I I .

(

Palaeologus) gave the Monembasiotes freedom from all sorts of exactions throughout the empire . It was captured after a three years' siege by Guillaume de Villehardouin in 1248, but the citizens retained their liberties and privileges, and the town was restored to the Byzantine emperors in 1262 . After many changes, it placed itself under Venice from 1463 to 1540, when it was ceded to the Turks . In 1689 it was the only town of theMorea which held out against Morosini, and Cornarohissuccessor only succeeded in reducing it by famine . In 1715 it capitulated to the Turks, and on the failure of the insurrection of 1770 the leading families were scattered abroad . As the first fortress which fell into the hands of the Greeks in 1821, it became in the following year the seat of the first national assembly . See Curtius, Peloponnesos, ii . 293 and 328; Castellan, Lettres sur la Moree (1808), for a plan; Valiero, Hist. della guerra di Candia (Venice, 1679), for details as to the fortress; W . Miller in Journal of Hellenic Studies (19o7) .