Mystras
Mystras or
Mistras (), also known in the ''
Chronicle of the Morea'' as
Myzethras or
Myzithras (Μυζηθρᾶς), is a fortified town and a former
municipality in
Laconia,
Peloponnese, Greece. Situated on Mt.
Taygetus, above ancient
Sparta, and below a Frankish castle, it served as the capital of the
Byzantine Despotate of the Morea in the 14th and 15th centuries, experiencing a period of prosperity and cultural flowering during the
Palaeologan Renaissance, including the teachings of
Gemistos Plethon. The city also attracted artists and architects of the highest quality.
Mystras remained inhabited throughout the
Ottoman period, when Western travellers mistook it for ancient Sparta. In the 1830s, it was abandoned and the new town of
Sparti was built, approximately eight kilometres to the east. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the Sparti municipality. As an exceptionally well-preserved example of a Byzantine city and because of its testimony to the development of Late Byzantine and Post-byzantine art, Mystras was inscribed on the
UNESCO World Heritage List in 1989.
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