‘Splashes of whitewash on the rock’ of Tinos

A tall, gaunt man strides along the weather-worn stones of a Tinian footpath holding a camera, the most important piece of ammunition for his mission: to capture his island's soul, its churches and chapels. Manthos Prelorentzos, a 47-year-old Athenian with family roots here, spent four years wandering Tinos' vast and almost forgotten network of medieval footpaths to accomplish, in 2020, the formidable task of photographing every one of the island's 924 dovecotes. His work was presented in an attractive self-published book of 328 pages, building on the work of Swiss architect Manuel Baud-Bovy, who spent two months on Tinos in 1955, giving us drawings of some 800 of these distinctive structures.

Now Prelorentzos has turned his attention to the churches and chapels, of which there are many more. Two of the island's most important folklorists, Georgios Dorizas and Alekos...