Institute for Mediterranean Studies

Mapping the Venetian Cadastro of Vostizza (1700): A pilot-project.

Mapping the Venetian Cadastro of Vostizza (1700): A pilot-project.

The Venetian Cadastro of Vostizza (1700), the first such cadastral survey in Greece, has been magnificently published by Dokos and Panayopoulos in 1993, but it has never been used in a GIS project. The aim of this project is to produce a full database, populated with the quantitative and geographical data from the initial Cadastro and to assess the precision of the cadastral survey of the Venetian engineers using a modern GIS system. The research (with the assistance of the “Laboratory of Geophysical-Satellite Remote Sensing and Archaeo-environment”) has demonstrated the high quality and geographical precision of the Venetian engineers and has re-constructed the distribution of land both after and before the Venetian conquest of the town of Vostizza and its territorio.

Principal Investigator Socrates Petmezas
Research Team Katerina Anagnostaki, Phd candidate, University of Crete


The Venetian Cadastro of Vostizza (1700), the first such cadastral survey in Greece, has been magnificently published by Dokos and Panayopoulos in 1993, but it has never been used in a GIS project. The aim of this project is to produce a full database, populated with the quantitative and geographical data from the initial Cadastro and to assess the precision of the cadastral survey of the Venetian engineers using a modern GIS system. The research (with the assistance of the “Laboratory of Geophysical-Satellite Remote Sensing and Archaeo-environment”) has demonstrated the high quality and geographical precision of the Venetian engineers and has re-constructed the distribution of land both after and before the Venetian conquest of the town of Vostizza and its territorio.


Research Products

  • Database [of sql type] accessible in situ (a sample of the maps produced can be accessed in http://vostizza.ims.forth.gr/en/index.php )
  • Σ.Δ. Πετμεζάς, “Land tenure and land settlement in Vostizza from Ottoman to Venetian rule: G.I.S. Mapping the Venetian Cadastro of 1700”, στο Elias Kolovos (επιμ.)Ottoman Rural Societies and Economies, VIII Halcyon Days in Crete: Symposium on Ottoman History, Cretan University Press, Heracleion, 2015, σελ.423-459.
  • Κ. Αναγνωστάκη, Σ.Πετμεζάς και Α.Σαρρής, “Διαβάζοντας ιστορία πάνω σ' ένα χάρτη: το ενετικό Κτηματολόγιο της Βοστίτσας”, στο Νίκος Ζαχαριάς (επιμ.) Πρακτικά του 3ου Συμποσίου ARCH_RNT - Αρχαιολογική Έρευνα και Νέες Τεχνολογίες, Εκδόσεις Παν/μίου Πελοποννήσου, Καλαμάτα 2014, σελ.31-38.

Project Team

Socrates Petmezas

Socrates Petmezas

Professor of Economic and Social Modern History
Department of History and Archaeology, University of Crete
Curriculum vitae