Chatzidakis scrutinizes the first evidence for Mystras, before the Frankish Conquest of 1249; the city's acme, under the Franks (from 1249 to 1262), and subsequently, in the days of the Kantakouzenoi and the Palaiologoi; and again when, as capital of the Despotate of the Morea (from 1348 to 1460), Mystras became "the centre and very soul of the ...