The Church of Panagia at Kapetaniana
The small livestock farmers settlement of Kapetaniana is located on the eastern part of the sierra of Asterousia, in an area where monasticism thrived in the period of the early Venetian occupation, as is evinced from the large number of churches and hermitages that survive until this day. Inside the settlement is the church of the All-Holy Virgin, once a catholicon of an entirely ruined monastery today. This is a single-nave church with transept, which was founded by the intellectual Gregory Kalamaras in 1401/1402. The high artistic quality of the mural painting has been connected to the artistic activity of the first Constantinopolitan painters who began to settle on the island from the end of the 14th century. The classical perception that permeates the depiction of the finely-wrought figures with the noble appearance and the melancholic faces characterises the style of the church’s painting. In the main body of the church, the entire unbroken Twelve Great Feasts are presented, a rarity in Cretan churches. Scenes from the Miracles and Passions of Christ, a Marian cycle developed in fifteen scenes, and full-length, frontal figures of renowned ascetics are depicted in the narthex.
