The Venetian Fleet Storehouse - Museum

On the west side of the Constitution Square there stands the impressive building of the venetian fleet-storehouse, built in 1713 by Augustine Sagredo, as it is mentio­ned on the engraved stone on the wall on the east side of the building :

Storehouse of the Fleet

for the use and decoration of the city. Augustine Sagredo,

prefect of the fleet

built with splendor.

The building served as barracks for a batallion of the 8th Regiment. During the German Occupation, the Germans had their inquisition offices here, as we see in the verses of the Nauplian poet Nicos Karou­zos:

Here is the storehouse of the foreign fleet,

the Venetian are watching us, from Nauplion's

sky, they remember me imprisoned in the storehouse - today a museum­

the years for freedom a temporary prison, they remember me.

This venetian monument has been built with red carved stone and it has a tile roof. Its architecture is strong, heavy and hard, like the expressions of its owners. The spar­se windows and the line of pillars with the arcs at the ground floor are trying to give some lightness to the building. The semi­carved stones of the facade, constitute ano­ther imperfect element of decoration on this heavy building, that was considered the most characteristic one of the venetian oc­cupation.

It has been used as an archaelogical museum since 1930 with findings from all the nearby archaelogical sites: Mycenae, Tiryns, Asine, Dendra, Midea etc.

The Museum has three large halls, two of which are open to visitors. In those, there are findings from the beginning of the Bronze period (2600 B.C.).

Among these one can see the large ice box that was found at Tiryns (middle of 80th century B.C.) and shows the interest of the people of that period in the comforts of everyday life. Other important items are a panathinean amphora, of those given to the winners of the Panathinea, with the representation of the reception of a horse ­race winner. Also an urn from Attica with Orestes' picture as he is about to kill his mother Clytemnestra, two shields of clay, dedications to the temple of Hera at Tiryns dated at the end of geometric period (700 B.C.) with important representations, a bron­ze Mycenean breast - plate, a helmet (1400 B.C.) etc. Some of these items have been presented to the museum by two eminent Nauplians, Glymenopoulos and the bishop Nikandros Delouka.