Ottoman Conquest of Athens

Between 1456 and 1458, Ottoman forces captured Athens, ending more than 250 years of Frankish and Florentine rule. At the time, the city belonged to the Duchy of Athens, ruled by the Florentine Acciaioli family, which had been paying tribute to the Ottomans. After a dispute over the succession in the ruling family, the Ottoman commander Omer Bey, son of Turahan Bey, entered the lower town of Athens in June 1456. The last duke, Franco Acciaioli, held out on the fortified Acropolis for about two years before surrendering in 1458, in exchange for being allowed to leave for Thebes. Later that year, Sultan Mehmed II visited Athens. According to the chronicler Kritoboulos, he greatly admired its ancient monuments, especially the Acropolis, and granted the city certain privileges. The Parthenon, which had served as a church for nearly a thousand years, was converted into a mosque around 1460. Athens remained under Ottoman rule for nearly four centuries, until the Greek War of Independence, and gradually declined into a small provincial town.