Museum
Ag. Ekateríni Sinaitón (Museum)
Monis Odigitrias 1, Iraklio 712 01
Venetian-era monastery church with Cretan Renaissance icons and a school that once trained El Greco.
This guide to Ag. Ekateríni Sinaitón in Heraklion follows two students who left this monastery's painting school in the 1560s: one sailed west and became known as El Greco, the other, Michael Damaskinos, returned home. It traces Damaskinos's Last Supper, painted around 1591 in deliberate answer to Leonardo da Vinci's version, and the Cretan details he wove into an Italian composition, from Doric columns to Minoan-inspired ornament. For two centuries this cruciform church trained painters, poets and philosophers side by side.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.