“The Earth was Going to Open and Swallow us up”

On 27^th February 1629 "On the Saturday of the Feast of the Cross, at the fourth hour of the day, a great earthquake occurred on the whole island of Crete and houses fell and many people were crushed... and the ground groaned and shook until we said that the earth was going to open and swallow us up". (Theocharis Detorakis, History of Crete, trans. J.C. Davis, Heraklion 1994, p. 198)

The earthquake of 1629 was one of the most powerful to strike Crete in the period of Venetian rule. Major destruction had earlier been wrought on Chandax by an earthquake on 25^th May 1508: according to the report by Duke Ieronimo Donato, only four or five houses in the entire town were left habitable.