Pronia settlement

Similar to the engraving of the Great Road, the central artery of Provion, the suburb that was created and named at the initiative of Capodistrias, was shaped. The mapping of her artery (March 25) was arranged on the basis of a real and visual finish, the hill of Evangelistria.

Since the first years of the Venetian occupation, during which Nafplion experienced great prosperity and cultural development, the city's population grew significantly and the need for its expansion was increasing. So the working population extended to the northeastern side of Palamidi, precisely this area that the Governor and the Voulgaris chose to establish the new settlement.

The area is still inhabited during the Ottoman rule and Nafplion becomes an export trade center for the entire Peloponnese. Even during the period of the Second Venice, a plan saved in the "Grimini archives" of Venice shows that there is still a settlement in this area. The title of the project is "Pianta del primo e secondo Borgetto di Romania" and gives enough information that besides the settlement of Pronia, which is formed linearly to the right and left of today's 25th March, there is also a second A suburb surrounded by fields to the northern part of the temple of Agioi Pantes, and a second temple at the point of today's Holy Trinity.

It is also noted that the settlement on the southern side of today's Palamidi street is expanding anarchically, which is also observed in the later periods. According to M. Lambrinidis, the inhabitants of Providence during this period were retired military. In the next period of the Second Turkish Rule, the Turks forbade the inhabitants of Nafplion to chapel within the walls of the city.

Thus, with a special permit, the Greeks use the temple of Agioi Pantes for this purpose, where the Greek cemetery is also created. At that time the settlement is predominantly inhabited by European traders. Later in the late 17th century and early 18th the suburb began to desert. This view is reinforced by the fact that there is no mention of a settlement at that place in Sankt-Jakob in Nafplion in 1814 (at the end of the Second Turkish Occupation).

So when the Greeks captured Nafplio in 1822, the settlement was destroyed, but there was still the temple of the Saints and the Greek cemetery. Until Kapodistria's arrival, it is not known whether Providence was inhabited. Probably, however, such a hypothesis would not have been possible, considering both the Governor's two letters to Voulgari and Mavrommatis who did not mention this, except that an inventory of the canyons inside the city and the bastions and the people living in them And Voulgaris will plan the new settlement, Welfare.

The rebuilding of the new settlement began immediately. This was because urgent rehabilitation of the city from the huts (inhabited by poor families) was considered urgent, where they posed a danger to public health and an outbreak of illness. Voulgaris himself says that he had begun to make the first huts on a regular plan since 5 May.

Their construction was entrusted to a workshop of thirty Peloponnesian masters, with master Mastrozafiris Economopoulos and Mastrogargyri under the supervision of Nick Constance. The counting made showed that 2,158 people were accommodated in 662 huts, the number of them later rising to 2,500.

Despite Kapodistrias' attempts to prevent the spread of the plague in the city of Nafplion (which appeared in Hydra), the epidemic did not succeed and the epidemic appeared in the lodges of the Providence and, as logically, caused the destruction of the district.

Thus the Governor entrusts to St. Voulgaris re-compiling a suburban urban planning plan, which is still preserved in the same area and under the same name. Unfortunately, however, no Voulgaris plan has been found for the new settlement. The oldest plan of the city of Nafplion is located in the archives of the French army in Paris, under the title "Plan directeur de la ville de Nauplie", without mentioning the date of its publication, of course it is probable that it is of Voulgaris but this plan does not include the Providence.

The same is true of Vallianos' plan of 1830, as well as the two subsequent drawings, the first of 26 September / 8 October 1833 entitled "Plan de la ville de Nauplio et du fort d'hischkale" Dracker located in the Historical and Ethnological Society and the Stademann plan of 1834.

The oldest welfare project is located at Achives de la Guerre in Paris with the title "Nauplie et lew environw au 5000e" and date back to 1832 by the French army "Brigade topographique".

Most of the information provided for the Welfare Settlement is in the Bavarian geometric designer Gebhrardt dated 5/17 February 1833 which is located in the General State Archives. The current March 25th Street, which appears as the central artery of the new settlement, is depicted and right and left from this section that makes up the Providence.

This section is among today's Vardavakis, Papakostopoulos, Athena and Nikitaras. Note the location of the cemetery and where the present church of the Holy Trinity is marked as a "plot". A block of flats measuring approximately 24 * 26 m2 is designed in the triangle between Asclepios, 25 March and Nikitaras streets, which has an internal patio and is marked with the footnote "hippoporfion" (military stables) and next to it there is an old marsh which was formed in a square Of high schools, fields, orchards, tanning. Agro is also noted in the northern suburb.

A complete plan of the existing situation, which distinguishes the building blocks and the individual plots, is also the next Welfare plan of 1834, located in the Historical and Ethnological Society and is the work of P. Hotter, F. Frund And B. Kutter. In this it is planned the cemetery with the temple of Agii Pantes, the Evangelistria and the military stables, which exist in the previous plan. On the southeastern side of the suburbs, the settlement extends anarchically without any street plan, as it did during the 2nd Venetian domination, but today.

The Hippodame system was used to design Welfare (as well as almost all new city departments). On the map there are seven rows of building blocks measuring 20 * 60 m2 and north-south direction and separated by four vertical streets. There are also two free spaces, where one is today the square of Ethnos Synergisis and the other one the square and the parish church of the Holy Trinity. The dimensions of the central square are 52 * 62 m2 much larger than those of Syntagma Square in old Nafplio (42 * 42 m2).

Welfare is a refugee settlement, so it is reasonable that the size of the plot (3 * 6 m2) is smaller than that of the city of Nafplion (6 * 12 m2). The settlement is built with a continuous building system. The houses were small, one-roomed, almost square and covered with a single roof. The road to the road was about 2 meters high, which was interrupted by the openings of a door and a window. On the back of the plot, where the auxiliaries were located, they left a small open space. Such houses exist even today in the settlement.

The Governor, wishing to encourage and help the citizens to build, decides a decree granting free land to those who want to build anywhere in Greece (in national estates). Thus, in the autumn of 1831, the counting of the plots of land in Provosta begins with the civil engineer S. Kamboussis and a three-member committee.

According to the measure, the Providence stretches: "in the area of ​​about 60,000 square meters, and the estimation at about 37,500, the term of estimation starts at ten minutes and proceeds to about 1,80 and the buildings are numbered 565.

Its appreciation seems to be very low, but because the first builders became the cause of this suburb, and considering the need of the fund, we are in the opinion of asking for payment in the event of an appreciation and to act the resolution to the full extent, "says On Economy Committee in Kapodistria. That is to say, in 1831, Providence had an area of ​​24,000 m2 and 565 buildings, and today its area is 23 ha (about 10 times) and its population is 3,500, which proves how densely populated the area (considering that in each house were three people ).

The financial amount that citizens would have to pay to buy a plot was very small, totally symbolic. This is easily understood by indicating that the value of the plots at that time in the city of Nafplion was 13 to 16 palm trees, while in Provosta the cost corresponded to ten minutes up to 1.80 palm trees.

At the same time, the "Committee of the Economy" submits the "draft of the ownership documents" to the Governor for approval, and most probably it was accompanied by a topographic plan, unfortunately not yet mentioned.

On September 23, 1831 with the approval of specific menu-plan of Kapodistrias mandated to collect money and to carry out the recommendations of the plan throughout the settlement. So based on these standards continues to rebuild in Providence, with two-storey houses and shops with larger homes in the central artery of March 25.

The present picture of the settlement differs little from the description of the German archaeologist Ludwig Ross in 1832. The buildings in Provosta are the most one-storey or two-storeyed and a minimum of three floors. That is why it is quite difficult to accurately determine their erection. The oldest buildings are built of stone and rarely of brick, with wooden vertical elements.

However, the extension of Providence does not stop in the years of John Kapodistrias, but continues later. With the election of Otto on the throne of the kingdom of Greece, the Bavarian soldiers, those of them settled in Nafplion why some died of marshy fevers while others turned in Bavaria lived in Providence, extending the course in accordance with the urban plan Voulgaris.

In February 1836, when Otto's father, King Ludwig of Bavaria visited Nafplio ordered the construction of a monument to the rock northeast of Providence (near where the cemetery is today) in honor of Bavarian soldiers died. The realization of the monument was made in 1840 by German sculptor H. Siegel. This is the lion of the Bavarians, oversized, which much like the monument in Lucerne as a tribute by the Swiss to their compatriots killed in the French Revolution.

On September 23, 1831 with the approval of specific menu-plan of Kapodistrias mandated to collect money and to carry out the recommendations of the plan throughout the settlement. So based on these standards continues to rebuild in Providence, with two-storey houses and shops with larger homes in the central artery of March 25.

The present picture of the settlement differs little from the description of the German archaeologist Ludwig Ross in 1832. The buildings in Provosta are the most one-storey or two-storeyed and a minimum of three floors. That is why it is quite difficult to accurately determine their erection. The oldest buildings are built of stone and rarely of brick, with wooden vertical elements.

However, the extension of Providence does not stop in the years of John Kapodistrias, but continues later. With the election of Otto on the throne of the kingdom of Greece, the Bavarian soldiers, those of them settled in Nafplion why some died of marshy fevers while others turned in Bavaria lived in Providence, extending the course in accordance with the urban plan Voulgaris.

In February 1836, when Otto's father, King Ludwig of Bavaria visited Nafplio ordered the construction of a monument to the rock northeast of Providence (near where the cemetery is today) in honor of Bavarian soldiers died. The realization of the monument was made in 1840 by German sculptor H. Siegel. This is the lion of the Bavarians, oversized, which much like the monument in Lucerne as a tribute by the Swiss to their compatriots killed in the French Revolution.

At the same time, Providence extends to the west of the National Synergy Square, while the building blocks on the eastern side of the square remain reconstructed.

There are two projects in the Welfare Department of the Welfare Department. The first plan is dated 4 December 1847 bearing the signature of the engineer of D. Iatridis Square and proposes the expansion of the Providence cemetery and the abolition of the building blocks in the last row to the cemetery. One of the reasons why the settlement did not allow it to be extended to this part was the existence of the cemetery.

Certainly the cemetery later, in about 1859, was moved to the place where it is still today and thus the settlement extends to the slope of Palamidi without an approved urban plan and to the part of the old cemetery. The second plan is dated June 10, 1852, titled "Nauplias Avenue Design, Department of Public Works" and is unsigned. This plan proposes the alignment of some streets and the extension of building blocks to the north until today's Varvakis - Rembelos. This suggestion, one could reasonably be said to be an illustration of the current situation in the settlement.

Later, both Churches, Evangelismos tis Theotokou and Holy Trinity were built in Providence.

The services in the area of ​​Providence are located on two main axes. On March 25, there are functions of trade and personal services, while on the axis of Asklepios Avenue there are functions of special services (gas stations, car workshops, exhibition of machinery).

Provost is also home to the former KYKNOS industrial site, recently demolished. In the section above Asklepios Avenue there is the Hospital and the Nafplio Cemetery. On March 25th, there is the Employing Center of the city, which has a room for meetings. The section of the Traffic Police is located at Ethnos Synergistis Square.

The present picture of Pronia, the first organized refugee settlement in the country, is not very different from the time of Kapodistrias. It is undoubtedly a single architectural ensemble, with the low structure and the peculiarity of both its streets and its buildings.

Map