'Le Quid', a fief mentioned in 1196, belonging to the archbishopric of Cyprus...

THE TOWER AT KITI

In 1196 'Le Quid' is mentioned as one of the properties belonging to the archbishopric of Cyprus. (1) In 1426 Kiti was burned down by the Egyptians, who had landed at Limassol and were marching on Larnaca and Nicosia.

| (1) Amadi, p. 501

In 1469 the fief belonged to Henry of Lusignan, the uncle of James the Bastard and grandfather of Father Stephen Lusignan. James confiscated it from him. (2)

| 2 Lusignan, fol. 120 and Mas Latrie, Hist. de Chypre, vol. 111, pp. 240-42.

At the end of the fifteenth or early in the sixteenth century the fief of Kiti was purchased from the Venetian Republic by Hercules Podocatoro. (3)

| (3) Originally the lordship had been sold to John Flatres but Podocatoro offered more.

The small tower still to be seen near the beach was built at about this time. Dapper is the first to refer to it in 1677 (4) ; since then Baron Rey has published a description and a sketch to which I (Enlart?, Hunt?) might add a few details. (5)

| (4) Descr. des isles de l'Archipel (1702 edition), p. 38.
| (5) Architecture militaire des Croisés, p. 231.

It is very like one of that series of watch-towers or block houses which were being erected at short intervals along the coastline of the Kingdom of Naples at the same date; but the latter are carelessly constructed in brickwork, in both of which points they differ markedly from the little tower at Kiti. It has, however, the same squat proportions, broad machicolations and a very massive lower portion with a pronounced batter.

As Enlart saw the tower in 1899: As with earlier keeps, the only entrance is a doorway on the first floor. There are no windows in the ground floor under which there is a cistern under a barrel vault. The flat roof of the tower, on the other hand, is laid over a very broad ribbed vault with plain ribs rectangular in profile. From this room a staircase built into the west wall of the tower leads up to the roof. Around it are machicolations whose crenellated parapet rested on brackets of three courses with a quadrant profile. There are no ornaments on this crowning feature unless you count the stars formed by eight intersecting lines carved on each face of the corner brackets.

The doorway is a plain rectangle but the lintel is divided into three compartments, the centre one carved with the lion of St. Mark holding a sword and the two side ones with shields of Italian pattern. The carvings are framed within a moulding that was immensely fashionable in Cyprus, a torus with a narrow fillet.

As Jeffery saw the tower around 1918: It is a tower six metres square with a base en talud, and possessing formerly a machicolated parapet supported on three courses of corbels. Within is one large chamber with a vaulted roof, and in the base of the tower is a large cistern. The only means of access is by a doorway about four metres from the ground outside. The lintel of the door is carved in three panels ; in the centre is the lion of St. Mark, on the left is a shield bearing a chevron between three crescents, on the right a shield bearing a bend dexter. These emblems evidently refer to some Lieutenant-Governor of Cyprus by whom the tower was erected.

The arms of Venice show that the earlier attribution of the tower to the fourteenth century was in error. It cannot have been built before the very end of the fifteenth century and proves that Venetian domination did not mean that Gothic traditions were forgotten. This pretty little Venetian watch-tower or block house, built as a station of the coast guard, is one of the few surviving relics of the Venetian Occupation with a distinctly artistic character.

This charming little monument was almost intact until about 1878, since when the neighbouring villagers have been in the habit of removing the stones in the manner customary all over Cyprus. In the beginning of 1911 the base of the structure was replaced with a concrete filling in of the spaces where the stone had been removed, but the fine machicolated cornice and parapet, which has been much destroyed by the stone-robbers, has not been restored. A good illustration (top of page) in Rey's "Architecture militaire des Croisés" (5) represents this tower as it stood in 1860. The tower was registered as an "ancient monument" in the first quarter of the 20th century.