Ana Notaras was the daughter of Loukas Notaras, the last Megas Doux of the Byzantine Empire. The position of Megas Doux was initially created by Alexios I Komnenos, emperor from 1081 -1118. Loukas is famous for his comment: “I would rather see the Turkish turban in the city than the Latin Mitre” which led to him being vilified by both sides of the Rome-Constantinople divide as well as by the Greek Byzantine historian –and eyewitness to the Fall of Constantinople in 1453- George Sphrantzes, whose antipathy was later picked up by Gibbon.
Regardless of this comment, he was apparently a supporter of securing Catholic aid by whatever means possible. During the siege of Constantinople, Loukas led the troops along the NW sea wall, and –despite later accusations of desertion- able to hold the wall against the Turkish fleet. Although initially spared by Mehmed II, Loukas was shortly after executed, the reasons for which vary in the source accounts. But certainly, one son (Jacob) and three of his daughters survived and managed to get safely to Italy -one of the daughters being Anna. In fact Anna had left Constantinople between 1440 and 1449 travelling to Rome with her sisters Theodora and Euphrosyne so she avoided the fall of the city and the subsequent massacre of her family.
In Italy, with the fortune her father had wisely invested abroad, she became the center of the Byzantine expatriate community in Venice. In their correspondence with her, the council of Siena referred to her as widow of the last Byzantine emperor Constantine XI (1449—1453), but this was almost certainly untrue. There is no mention of such a marriage in any other contemporary source.
An independent Greek colony came into existence in Venice during 15th C, but it kept in touch with Greece and thus retained its Greek character. During the years leading up to the fall of Constantinople, Loukas Notaras had frequent contact with Venice and Genoa The question arises as to why the Notaras children did not emigrate to Genoa rather than Venice- particularly as the Genoese paid a large part in their safe release from Ottoman hands The Genoese were very concerned about the fate of the children after 1453, and indeed in 1454 Genoese envoys were instructed to ask the sultan about the children and to obtain safe escort for them if possible. Interestingly the reason given was that their father and grandfather “were Genoese”
The relative merits of the two Italian cities is of course a subject in itself, but fairly modern research has established the following possible reasons:
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When in 1463, a chair for Greek Language was established at the University of Padua (Venetian Territory) the Greek humanist Demetrios Chalkokondoyles expressed his conviction that the freedom of Greeks lay in hands of the Venetians –however the great hope of the Greeks to return to the Bosporus was not to become a reality, but the lesser hope of living space on foreign soil did. This led to the founding of a Greek brotherhood, the building of a Greek church, and Greek printing shop, thus part of the Byzantine world was brought into the Venetian Lagoon, turning Venice into an “altera Constantinopolis” (J G Ball “Poverty, Charity and the Greek Community” 1982)
Anna became a key figure among the Greek expatriates in Venice. She established, with two others (Nikolaos Vlastos and Zacharias Kalliergis), one of the first printing presses for Greek books in Venice (in 1499), which although short- lived produced the most beautiful incunabulum (early printed book) the Etymologicum Magnum of 1499.
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The Fate of Anna Notaras
John Anderson