Set on a hillside of Mainalon mountain at a height of 1080 meters, Stemnitsa is a mountain village in the municipality Gortynia characterized as traditional settlement.

The area is known since antiquity as Ypsous (which means height). According to mythology, it took its name from the Ypsounta, son of the king of Arcadia, who built it. It is unknown when exactly renamed Stemnitsa. Allegedly occurred after the 7th century AD and after the colonization of the region by Slavs since in Slavic means wooded and shady place.

It was the main position of Theodoros Kolokotronis, at the revolution of 1821 as it was the headquarters of the First Peloponnesian Senate met in a cell in the church of Zoodochos Pigi. It was the first informal capital of rebellious Greek nation for one day on May 27, 1821. Because of the ground of Stemnitsa that was rough, people turned to trade and silverwork. stemnitsiotikes bells were known during the Byzantine period and their craftsmen were the most famous throughout Greece.