Morfonou

Morfonou Tower is the surviving remnant of the Amalfinon monastery, one of Mount Athos’s earliest major foundations, established in the tenth century by seven monks from Amalfi in Italy. The original monastery and tower date from the tenth or eleventh century. As Byzantium weakened, so did the Amalfi merchant community in Constantinople, and the monastery was abandoned after the Fourth Crusade. In 1287 Andronikos II Palaiologos granted the deserted site to the Monastery of Megisti Lavra. The tower itself appears to have remained in service, likely for defence against pirates, and in the sixteenth century it was substantially rebuilt, with a new fortification raised over the old Byzantine structure. Today it stands in average condition, a castle-monastery of post-Byzantine character, and the sole visible trace of a community whose Italian origins made it unusual among the great houses of the Holy Mountain.