The decision of the Serenissima Republica di Venezia to establish its domination in the island of Crete was expressed not only by the immediate adoption of the system of military colonization and the foundation of a severe administration but also by an extent building program, which would meet the new conditions and promote the domination of Venice in administrative and religious aspect. In this context, Candia was supplied with new buildings for administration purposes, barracks, merchandise and military warehouses, infrastructures for trade and ship repairs, but also constructions suitable to fulfill the religious needs of the catholic dogma, churches and monastic complexes of the catholic Orders that settled on the island.

Of the buildings of the early Venetian period only a few survived in Heraklion. A large amount was lost due to the innumerous disastrous earthquakes. The constant repair and rebuilding but also the rearrangement of the natural terrain and the demolitions for the construction of the large defensive enceinte of the 16^th c. resulted to the loss of most of the older buildings. The distortion of the Venetian urban infrastructure begun soon after the Ottoman conquest in 1669. As a result of the additions and repairs due to the new defensive, administrative, religious and domestic needs, new vast seismic destructions and the conflagration that followed the last incident of the Ottoman retreat from Crete, the massacre of the civilians in the 25^th of August 1898 in Heraklion, only a few part of the Venetian buildings survived to the early 20^th c. But the final blow was given during the following decades, since the uncontrolled urban development, the functionality interventions to the urban infrastructure, such as the construction of new roads and the arrangement of open spaces, the rapid and immune reconstruction -a result of the constantly increasing urbanism-, but also the non-acceptance of the monumental value of buildings connected in the mind of the inhabitants with the presence of conquerors, resulted to the demolition of an important amount of the surviving constructions.