MALVASIA (Gr. illonemvasia, "city of the single ap proach"; Ital. Napoli di Malvasia; Turk. Mengeshe or Beneshe) on the east coast of the Morea, contiguous to the site of the ancient Epidaurus Liniera (q.v.), of which it took the place; one of the principal fortresses and commercial centres of the Levant during the middle ages, still represented by considerable ruins and a town of about 55o inhabitants. So extensive was its trade in wine that the name became familiar throughout Europe as that of a special kind—Ital. Malvasia; Span. Malvagia; Fr. Malvoisie; Eng. Malvesie or Malmsey. The wine was not of local growth, but came from the Cyclades, and Malavisi province of Crete.
The Byzantine emperors valued Malvasia as a fortress in the Morea, and rewarded its inhabitants for their fidelity by unusual privileges. The emperor Maurice made the city (previously de pendent in ecclesiastical matters on Corinth) an archbishop's see, and Alexius Comnenus, and more especially Andronicus II. (Palaeologus) gave the Monembasiotes freedom from all sorts of exactions throughout the empire. It was captured after three
years' siege by Guillaume de Villehardouin in 1248, but retained its liberties and privileges, and was restored to the Byzantine em perors in 1262. It placed itself under Venice from 1463 to 1540, when it was ceded to the Turks. In 1689 it was the only town of the Morea which held out against Morosini, and his successor Cornaro only succeeded in reducing it by famine. In 1715 it capitulated to the Turks, and on the failure of the insurrection of 177o the leading families were scattered abroad. As the first fortress which fell into the hands of the Greeks in 1821, it became in the following year the seat of the first national assembly.
See Curtius, Peloponnesos, ii. 293 and 328; Castellan, Lettres sur la Mot* (18o8), for a plan; Valiero, Hist. della guerra di Candia (Venice, 1679), for details as to the fortress; W. Miller in Journal of Hellenic Studies (19o7).