The first capital of modern
Greece,
Nafplio (
Nafplion), is tucked away at the end of the Argolida bay and is one of the country's most beautiful towns and major tourism magnets. Nafplio was the harbor of the major Mycenaean city-state of Argos from the 7th century BC on, and it became an important military and commercial harbor during the Venetian rule of the
Peloponese, after 1204 AD. The Venetians, led by Governor Morosini of
Crete, built Palamidi, the castle above the town, and Bourtzi, the small garrison tower in the middle of the harbor, and made
Nafplio the capital of the whole
Peloponese.
Nafplio was the hub of administrative activity of the revolutionary forces during
Greece's 1821 War of Independence. The neighboring cities of, first, ancient Epidavros and Astron Kynourias were the venues of
Greece's first constitutional convention, in the second half of 1821, in the first year of the revolution.
After the country's independence was formally established with the 1830 Treaty of
London, Nafplio became
Greece's first capital. Governor Ioannis Kapodistrias, the Corfiot-born Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Empire landed here on 7 January 1828 as sovereign
Greece's first ruler. His government did not last long. About four years later he was assassinated by southern
Peloponnese warlords as he was entering the church of Agios Spyridon, on today's Kapodistria Street, for Sunday mass. The assassins, captured and executed, had land and power disputes with the government.
