On the western side of the “Square of the Lords” (Piazza dei Signori) stood the seat of the Duke of Crete, as well as the chambers in which the Signoria and the courts convened. It was a large complex of buildings, occupying an entire urban block, whose construction had already been completed in 1269. According to surviving depictions, the palace was a two-storey structure featuring vaulted ground-floor spaces and an internal courtyard, a trilobed central opening and large Gothic pointed-arch windows. In addition to the Duke’s apartments, it comprised reception rooms, halls for meetings of the highest authorities and for public audiences, a large storehouse, a prison, cisterns, fountains and wells. The building underwent repeated repairs and additions as a result of earthquake damage.

After the fall of the city, it became the residence of the Agha of the Janissaries. It was abandoned in 1826, after which the site was gradually encroached upon and subdivided into small properties. Today, four of the vaulted spaces that once framed the internal courtyard survive on the south-eastern side and two pointed arches recently uncovered along the east–west axis are most likely associated with the palace’s central entrance gateway.