All about Zakynthos
In the house of the district of Odigitria, in Barakiotika, owned by Dion. Hariati, the Foskolos family settled in October 1780, when Nikolaos was almost three years old, and stayed there until 1785, when they moved to Spalatos in Dalmatia.
The last owner of the house, the merchant Elias Makris Pachygiannis, requested in 1885 from the Municipal Authority a demolition permit to rebuild it. Sp. Deviazis and Andreas Martzokis forced with their publications the Municipal Authority not to issue the demolition permit until the Municipal Council convened, which subsequently decided to purchase it from the Municipality of Zakynthia, which was followed by its repair and the placement of a commemorative plaque on its façade in 1892, under Mayor Anastasios Loudzis. "The house where Hugo Foskolos was born on January 26, 1778, purchased by the Municipality for eternal remembrance, was placed by a resolution of the Municipal Council in 1892.
Mayor Luke Carrer considered the operation of the Foscolian Municipal Library in this house as the most appropriate use of the Foscolian house. Thus the Foscolian Library was founded in 1888, open to the public.
After the proposal of the Foscolian committee, Deviazis was appointed as unpaid curator.
In 1940, on November 6, Italian planes bombed the town of Zakynthos. Bomb dropped near the Foskolos house destroyed it.
When the Italians occupied Zakynthos in May 1941, they rebuilt the building with money deposited in the Bank by the Zakynthians of America for the needs of the families of the Zakynthian warriors of 1940.
During the Allied bombardment of 11-1-1944, the Foskolos house suffered serious damage from the explosion and the projectiles that were thrown. The exterior doors and windows were broken, the roof was badly damaged, the exterior wall was damaged and the interior walls were cracked and one was dilapidated. Finally in 1953 the earthquake and fire destroyed it completely.
60 years later, in 1953, the house of Foskolos was erected in the same place and with the same plan.
