It is set in a sheltered location with views across to Skorpios (formerly owned by Aristotle Onassis), Meganisi and other small islands, as well as the Greek mainland.

South of Vasiliki is Cape Lefkada, where Cephalus and the Greek female poet Sappho allegedly leapt to their death from the 30 m high cliffs on two separate occasions.

There have been suggestions by local tourism officials that several passages in the Odyssey point to Lefkada as a possible model for Homeric Ithaca.

[10] Furthermore, according to legend, it was the jumping spot of Sappho when she committed suicide out of frustrated love and also that of Artemisia of Caria, and therefore may have some connection to Aphrodite.

[16] In 1295, the Despot of Epirus Nikephoros I Komnenos Doukas ceded the island to his son-in-law, the Count palatine of Cephalonia and Zakynthos John I Orsini.

[17] The Orsini family lost Lefkada in 1331 to Walter VI of Brienne, who in 1343 ceded the castrum Sancte Maure and the island to the Venetian Graziano Giorgio.

[19][16] In 1360/62, Leonardo I Tocco seized Lefkada, assuming the title of duke (dux Lucate), whence the island is sometimes also referred to as "the Duchy" (el Ducato and variants thereof) in Western sources of the period.

[13] Carlo I Tocco (r. 1376–1429) made the island the capital of his domains, which apart from the County palatine of Cephalonia and Zakynthos also included much of the Epirote mainland, and enlarged the fortified town.

[14] In 1413, the Prince of Achaea, Centurione II Zaccaria, launched an attack on Lefkada and its castle with Albanian mercenaries, but were defeated with help from the Republic of Venice.

[14] The last of them, Leonardo III Tocco (r. 1448–1479) was helped to maintain his rule through his marriage to Milica Branković, a niece of the highly esteemed stepmother of the Ottoman sultan Mehmed the Conqueror (r. 1444–1446, 1451–1481); but when she died, he married the Aragonese Francesca Marzano.

[17][25] With about a thousand inhabitants in c. 1530, the town of Lefkada was both the largest settlement and the main military installation in the sanjak, with 111 soldiers and 9 artillerymen.

[24] A lack of water led to the construction of a 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) long aqueduct from the island's interior to the town in 1564, during the reign of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (r. 1520–1566).

[28] Evliya visited the island in 1670/71 and left a long and accurate description of the fortifications as well as of the town, where Islam had apparently made considerable progress.

The walled town with its 200 stone houses was now occupied exclusively by Muslims, while the two suburbs (varosh) to the east and west were built of wood and had a mixed population.

The western one was far larger, with 300 houses to 40–50 in the eastern one, and had a wooden mosque and masjid, a tekke, a maktab, two caravanserais, as well as seven small churches.

[30] According to the descriptions of travellers like Evliya, Lefkada was an urban centre of some importance, boasting "two of the largest works of Ottoman civil and military architecture in the Western Balkans", namely the aqueduct built by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (r. 1520–1566) and the Castle of Santa Maura, which was completely rebuilt by Kılıç Ali Pasha in the reign of Sultan Selim II (r. 1566–1574).

[30] During the Seventh Ottoman–Venetian War, following the Ottoman reconquest of the Morea in 1715, the Venetians initially abandoned Lefkada to focus their resources on the defence of Corfu.

The castle was abandoned and partly demolished, but after the Siege of Corfu ended in a Venetian victory, the island was reoccupied and the fortifications restored.

[30] Following the end of the Republic of Venice in 1797, Lefkada, like the other Venetian Ionian Islands, was occupied by the French, who held it until a Russo-Turkish expedition under Fyodor Ushakov captured it in 1799.

The visitors, through photos, texts and exhibits, can wander in the significant events of Lafcadio Hearn's life, and also in the civilizations of Europe, America and Japan of late 19th and early 20th centuries through the open mind of his lectures, writings and tales.

The municipalities of Kumamoto, Matsue, Shinjuku, Yaizu, as well as Toyama University, the Koizumi family, and other people from Japan and Greece contributed to the establishment of the Lafcadio Hearn Historical Center.