the scene of the great sea battle in which the naval power of the Ottoman Empire was nearly completely destroyed by the united Spanish, Papal, and Venetian forces (Battle of Lepanto, October 7, 1571). In 1687 it was recaptured by the Venetians, but was again restored to the Ottomans in 1699, by the Treaty of Karlowitz. Among those who fought in the Battle of Lepanto was Miguel de Cervantes, the most famous Spanish writer; there is a statue in his honour. Modern history Nafpaktos became part of independent Greece in March 1829. It was incorporated as a commune in 1912 and as an independent municipality in 1946. In the 1997 reform, Nafpaktos municipality was enlarged by the incorporation of 13 communes. In the 2010 reform, Nafpaktos municipality was merged with five other municipalities to form Nafpaktia municipality, and the town of Nafpaktos proper is now a communal district within the Nafpaktos municipal district of Nafpaktia municipality. Naupactus suffered damage from the 2007 Greek forest fires. Ecclesiastical history The metropolitan see of Naupactus depended on the pope of Rome until 733, when Leo III the Isaurian annexed it to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The zealous youth St. Nicholas of Trani after a failed attempt at the mortifications of cenobitic life at the Hosios Loukas monastery in Boetia set sail in the spring of 1094 on a pilgrimage to Rome for the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul. His pious habit of evangelizing the sailors with constant proclamations (in Greek kerygma from κηρύσσω, meaning "to cry or proclaim as a herald") of the phrase Kyrie Eleison according to legend, led them to throw him overboard. He made it ashore in Italy, but was not hospitably received and died some months later aged just 19. Miraculous cures led to him being publicly acclaimed as worthy of veneration by the Bishop of Trani at the Council of Bari in 1098. Under Frankish rule, there were about 20 archbishops in the 14–15th centuries. The city remains a titular see of the Roman Catholic church. The see was attached to the Church of Greece after the Greek War of Independence. It was suppressed in 1900, replaced by the see of Acarnania and Naupactia, whose seat is at Missolonghi. Residents Today the population is about 19,768 people according to the 2011 census. Residential homes align with the Gulf of Corinth over a length of about and a