Kolossi Castle and the Cornaro Family

Kolossi Castle had many plantations of sugar cane, vineyards, olives, carobs, wheat and cotton and during Frankish times was a very important area of land and property. Later in 1210, this fief was given to the Lusignan king of Cyprus Hugh I. The Grand Commaderie was established here in 1310 and a 12th Century church called Agios Efstathios was the knight's place of worship. The knights ruled on a feudal basis and produced olive oil, wheat, cotton, wine and sugar. After 1310 they still administered their lands from Kolossi after founding their own state on Rhodes.

The Genoese raids of 1373 and of Mamelukes in 1402, 1413, 1425 and 1426 as well as a series of earthquakes seems to have destroyed the castle. In 1454, Louis de Magnac built a new and stronger castle which we see today.

Dr Ekaterini Aristidou mentions in her book 'Kolossi Castle Through the Centuries,' that "the largest sugar-cane plantations were at Episkopi and belonged from the first half of the 15th century to the Venetian family of Cornaro, from whom the Queen of Cyprus Catherine Cornaro (1473-1489) descended. These were the most important ones in Cyprus. The Cornaro family had sugar-cane plantations and other financial interests in the island long before Catherine married James in 1472 and was crowned Queen of Cyprus. With the appointment of George Cornaro (1488) brother of Queen Catherine, and later the appointment of Cardinal Mark Cornaro (1508), nephew of Queen Catherine, to the position of Grand Commander of the Order of St John, Kolossi was also added to the sugar-cane plantations which the Cornaro family owned at Episkopi since the end of the 15th century."

Dr Aristidou then goes on to explain that "In 1494 when the Italian Casola visited sugar-cane plantations at Kolossi and Episkopi he saw there more than 400 persons engaged in the production of sugar. The fact that Episkopi was rich in sugar-cane plantations is also confirmed by the Italian traveller Count Capodilista, who visited the district in 1458. According to him the above mentioned plantations belonged to the House of Cornaro." The Venetian nobleman Francesco Suriano who travelling from Jaffa to Venice visited Cyprus in August 1484, mentioned that the island produced a lot of sugar.

In 1488, George Cornaro, Catherine's brother persuaded his sister to give the island to Venice and in return was given Kolossi Castle and its land. The Cornaro family then became governors of Cyprus. Their title remained even after the Ottoman conquest in 1570-71 when they lost their property but the titular rank of Grand Commander of Cyprus remained in the Cornaro family. In 1799 the House of Cornaro died out, but the title was claimed by the Count Mocenigo, who married the heiress of the Cornaro house.

Kolossi Castle, this impressive medieval castle of the Crusaders revived for a while its grandeur of old days on the 18th September, 1959, during a specially magnificent ceremony which was organised in the courtyard of the Kolossi Castle, when 300 guests were present, among whom were the English Governor Sir Hugh Foot, his wife and Lord Wakehurst, Lord Prior of the Order of St John. The ceremony had turned the memory centuries back and had brought to light the grandeur and the history of this impressive castle, which, for centuries has stood there,with a huge cypress tree next to it.