The Cemetery

The road passes a little stand of pine trees, at the end of which there is a whitewashed cemetery wall. This gives a kind of introduction to the atmosphere of the town (see plate 36). White marble busts on the family tombs indicate the former grandeur of the town, which lasted well into its period of decline. In 1989 Monemvasia's great son, Joannis Ritsos, the world famous contemporary poet, was buried here, whose songs and poems, full of social criticism, have been put to music by Mikis Theodorakis.

The cemetry was probably established after the liberation from the Turks, for a map of Monemvasia made in the first decade of the eighteenth century for the Venetian provveditore, Francesco Grimani, does not show the cemetery. Furthermore, none of the Greek inscriptions on the tombs give a death date that precedes the liberation.