A castle built by Ali pasha of Ioannina in 1814 above the village Anthoussa in Epirus, 3000m air-distance from Parga.

History

After the end of the Venetian Republic, Parga was the only place in Epirus that had not fallen in the hands of Ali pasha. The pasha was obsessed with it, but he would not try anything because the little town was protected by French troops.

In February 1814, after the fall of Napoleon, Ali pasha felt that he could violate the treaties between the Turks and the French and raided the villages of Ayia and Antoussa which were in a gray zone between his pashalik and the French dominion. He did not make a move against Parga though. Instead, he decided to build a fort on a summit above Anthoussa with the obvious objective to bombard Parga from there.

It seems that this, the building of forts around a besieged location, was a standard method of operation for the pasha. He had done it when he was trying to capture Lefkada, Souli, Paramythia, Margariti and other places.

The building of the castle of Anthoussa started in 1814, after Ali managed to bypass the objection of Danzelot , the French governor of Corfu.

The architect of the castle was the Italian Don Santo di Monteleone who must have been an officer in Ali’s army and for whom is not known to have built another castle before. Nor since.

The fort proved useless. Within the same year, 1814, the British took over the Ionian islands -and Parga- from the French. This development canceled any offensive plans. Fianally, in 1819, the British sold Parga to Ali for 150,000 pounds, in one of the most dramatic episodes of modern Greek history.

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