The Venetian Loggia was a place for meetings, transactions and recreation for the dignitaries, the noblemen and generally the prominent and wealthy citizens of Candia. It was reconstructed four times in different places, until it got the form which is known from the photographs and the sketches of the early 20^th c. This last building, ordered by the Governor Francesco Morosini between 1626 and 1628, was situated at the SE corner of the Piazza dei Signiori (actually the Kallergis Familly square) and it was one of the most beautiful public buildings in Candia. It survived the Ottoman occupation almost intact, connected to the adjacent building of the Armeria (the weapon warehouse) to the North. In the beginning of the 20^th c. it was still in good condition. In fact, in 1900 it was meant to be restored to become an archeological museum, according to a plan executed by the engineer N. Saliveros. Unfortunately the project was rejected because the building was proclaimed unstable.

In 1901-1902 the Italian engineer Federico Berchet, director of the Peripheral Office for the Conservation of the Monuments of Veneto, based on the photos and the sketches provided by G. Gerola, proposed the restoration of the monument to its original form. But, according to the scholar Stergios Spanakis, the plan and the involvement of the Instituto Veneto “caused a fierce contradiction about the benefit of the preservation of this marvelous monument”. In September of 1904, within 48 hours, the upper floor of the building was demolished in a brutal way, with the excuse that it was ready to collapse; only a few pieces of its sculptural decoration were saved. According to the description of the scholar and eye-witness Stephanos Xanthoudides “they were thrown with rage and fury from a height of 10-15 meters down to the pavement of the street, the columns and the rest of the architectural decoration, and they were broken into pieces; during that dreadful fall they mutilated and broke into pieces the parts of the ground floor that were preserved in an excellent condition, especially the stylobates and the projecting cornices which they crippled in a pitiful way”.



Due to the outcry and with a serious delay, in 1911 the City Council asked for the support of the Italian government on the restoration. It was an irony that, within this same year, Venice was represented in the International Exhibition of Rome by a kiosk reproducing the Loggia of Candia, based on designs by the Curator of the Monuments of Venice Max Ongaro. The request of the City Council was accepted by Venice in 1914 and M. Ongaro himself visited the monument, accompanied by G. Gerola, to execute a restoration plan. But the works were interrupted once more in 1915. The WWI and the catastrophe in Minor Asia set a new obstacle. Between 1932 and 1934 the adjacent building of the Armeria was reconstructed; nevertheless in 1937 the surviving ground floor of the Loggia was demolished in the same way as the upper floor was in 1904.

In the place of the original Loggia of the 17^th c., a quite accurate replica was constructed between 1960 and the ‘80ies to host the City Hall. The reconstruction received the Europa Nostra Award.

The entablatures of the monument were initially decorated with 82 relief slabs (metope) depicting the lion of St. Marc, guns and trophies, musical instruments and knots. Of them in 1900 survived in place 68, including 22 different decorative patterns. Most of them were lost during the demolition. Only few (15) were collected and sheltered in the Archaeological Museum and later in the Historical Museum of Crete. Two more were recently located in a stone pile abandoned in the moat of the walls and were transported to the storage rooms of the 13h E.B.A. Today they are exhibited here together with a group of architectural sculptures from the same stone pile, which were identified as decorative parts of the building thanks to the photos of G. Gerola.