Physically cyprus can have changed hardly at all since Guy of Lusignan acquired the island in the spring of 1192. At its centre, with foothills reaching down towards the southern and western coasts, rise the Troodos mountains, their highest point standing over 6,000 feet above sea-level. Along the north coast and extending into the Karpasia peninsula, that finger of land which points north-east towards the Gulf of Iskenderun, runs another line of mountains, the Kyrenia range. Between these two mountainous regions and occupying much of the rest of the island's 3,500 square miles, lies a plain, the eastern portion of which is known as the Mesaoria. Strategically the Kyrenia range has always been of greater importance than the Troodos. Admittedly it is lower – the highest peaks barely reach above 3,500 feet – but its escarpment is more pronounced, and it separates the capital, Nicosia, from the nearest point on the coast, the port and fortress of Kyrenia, sixteen miles to the north. By the time of the Latin conquest three of the summits of the Kyrenia mountains were capped by castles, from east to west: Kantara, Buffavento and St Hilarion. St Hilarion guarded the pass between Nicosia and Kyrenia, which, as the the location of Isaac Comnenus' treasury, was probably the best fortified place in the island at that time. For any ruler or conqueror, control of Nicosia, Kyrenia and St Hilarion was critical, as the civil wars of 1229–33 and 1458–64 and the Genoese invasion of 1373–4 were to demonstrate.