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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.
It was the first book to be printed by the newly established Greek press of Venice and is one of the most famous examples of early Venetian printing, incorporating as it does a flowing Greek script and ornate capitals and headings in red ink. It proved to be a costly work, taking six years to complete, necessitating as it did the construction of a new Greek type. It has even been suggested (Nicol 1996) that the ornate fretwork of the ink headings and capitals may have been based on embroideries by Anna and her niece Eudokia Cantacuzene. Vlastos was the manager of Anna Notaras’ estate, and played an instrumental role in the printing of the Etymologicum Magnum.
Although Anna and her siblings settled into Venice fairly easily – thanks in no small part to the financial provisions their father had made for them- life was not without difficulties. Anna had problems practising her inherited religion in her own house in Venice; her confident Nicholas Blastos was even interrogated under torture by the authorities about her intentions.
Anna died on 8th July 1507, having lived a long life. Tradition has it that she was over one hundred years old and died a virgin, mourning her great love Constantine Palaeologus, the last Emperor of Byzantium, but this has an apocryphal ring to it.