Naxos was both Venetian and Turkish for many centuries, from 1210, when the Venetian duke Marco Sanudo assumed the rule of the Cyclades on behalf of Constantinople; Venetian rule under lax Turkish oversight lasted into the 18th century. The former French School, founded by Roman Catholic Jesuits during Ottoman Muslim rule in 1627, is another testimony to the permissiveness of the Turkish administrators. Nikos Kazantzakis, the famous Cretan author of Zorba the Greek and other modern classics, attended the school in 1896 but left abruptly when his father appeared at the door with a torch and demanded his son, shouting, “My boy, you papist dogs, or else it’s fire and the ax!” The school now houses the Archaeological Museum, a showplace for the sensuous, elongated, white marble Cycladic statuettes that date to 3,000 b.c. and resemble the work of 20th-century Italian sculptor Amedeo Modigliani. You'll also see salons  filled with the furnishings the family has collected during their 800 years of residency. Coats of arms of Venetian families also litter the marble floor of the cathedral, where Byzantine icons showing Western subjects reflect the influence of Eastern and Western traditions on the island. The garden that is the setting for summertime concerts.