Candia, Kingdom of (Venetian Crete)

The Kingdom of Candia (Italian: Regno di Candia) or Duchy of Candia (Italian: Ducato di Candia) is the official name of Crete during the island's period as an overseas colony of the Republic of Venice, from the initial Venetian conquest in 1205–1212 to its fall to the Ottoman Empire during the Cretan War (1645–1669).

The island is at this time and up to the early modern era commonly known as Candia after its capital, Candia or Chandax (modern Heraklion).

In modern Greek historiography, the period is known as the Venetocracy (Greek: Venetokratia or Enetokratia).The island of Crete had formed part of the Byzantine Empire until 1204, when the Fourth Crusade dissolves the empire and divides its territories amongst the crusader leaders.

Crete is initially allotted to Boniface of Montferrat, but, unable to enforce his control over the island, he soon sells his rights to Venice.

Venetian troops first occupy the island in 1205, but it takes until 1212 for it to be secured, especially against the opposition of Venice's rival Genoa.

Hereafter, the new colony takes shape: the island is divided into six provinces (sestieri) named after the divisions of the city of Venice itself, while the capital Candia is directly subjected to the Commune Veneciarum.

The islands of Tinos and Cythera, also under Venetian control, come under the kingdom's purview.

In the early fourteenth century, this division is replaced by four provinces, almost identical to the four modern prefectures.During the first two centuries of Venetian rule, revolts by the native Orthodox Greek population against the Roman Catholic Venetians are frequent, often supported by the Empire of Nicaea.

Fourteen revolts are counted between 1207 and the last major uprising, the Revolt of St. Titus in the 1360s, which unites the Greeks and the Venetian coloni against the financial exactions of the metropolis.

Hereafter, and despite occasional revolts and Turkish raids, the island largely prospers, and Venetian rule opens up a window into the ongoing Italian Renaissance.

As a consequence, an artistic and literary revival unparalleled elsewhere in the Greek world takes place: the Cretan School of painting, which culminates in the works of El Greco, unites Italian and Byzantine forms, and a widespread literature using the local idiom emerges, culminating with the early seventeenth-century romances Erotokritos and Erophile.After the Ottoman conquest of Cyprus in 1571, Crete is Venice's last major overseas possession.

The Republic's relative military weakness, coupled with the island's wealth and its strategic location controlling the waterways of the Eastern Mediterranean, attracts the attention of the Ottoman Empire.

In the long and devastating Cretan War (1645–1669), the two states fight over the possession of Crete: the Ottomans quickly overrun most of the island, but fail to take Candia, which holds out, aided by Venetian naval superiority and Ottoman distractions elsewhere, until 1669.

Only the three island fortresses of Souda, Gramvousa and Spinalonga remain in Venetian hands.

Attempts to recover Candia during the Morean War fail, and these last Venetian outposts are finally taken by the Turks in 1715, during the last Ottoman–Venetian War

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