Searching for the lost city of Fermenia on the island of Kythnos

Abstract

During the 15th and 16th century travellers and cartographers of all kinds sailed across the Aegean Sea. Their nationality and background differed as did the reasons that made them undertake their journeys. Whatever their purpose, they left an extremely valuable documentation of the Aegean islands during this period. The outline of the maps drawn in their ‘isolarii’ may not be that accurate and their observations cannot always be trusted, hovering between myth and reality. Nevertheless, they provide an interesting and unique source of information, as they document places and events long lost even to the collective memory of the contemporary inhabitants. That is the case of the fortified city of Fermenia on Kythnos. According to the accounts of numerous cartographers of that period, Fermenia was the medieval capital of the island, a prosperous insular castle located near the south-east coast visible to the approaching ships. However, no built remains have survived to the present day and from the 18th century on Fermenia vanished also from all written sources. This research focuses on late medieval documents and maps. Combining them with known historic events (e.g. Kythnos' capture by Barbarossa) the study aims to discover more about the city's fate.