Anna Notaras
A Byzantine Lady in Venice
Anna Notaras’ father’s prudent investments in Italian banks had allowed his daughters, among whom Anna was the eldest, to find their way to Italy the years preceding the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453. The Grand Duke Loukas Notaras foresaw that the end of the Byzantine Empire was nigh and used his influence and Italian friends in high places to secure his daughters comfortable living in Rome, under the protection of Cardinal Bessarion.
Anna Notaras was spared the horrors that followed the fall of the Byzantine capital to Sultan Mehmed. Her father stayed at his post during the long siege of Constantinople and he and the rest of his family (apart from his youngest son) were later executed. It is said that the Anna’s mother killed herself and that her brothers were killed before her father’s eyes, apart from the youngest to which the Sultan had taken a liking. He eventually joined Anna in Italy.
A staunch Orthodox, Anna Notaras was against the union of the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches and refused to accept any pension from Rome or learn the Latin of the Roman Mass. Legend has it that Anna Notaras was secretly betrothed or even married to the Byzantine Emperor, Constantine Paleologos. Historical evidence does not however support such a fact.
Anna Notaras was contemplating of setting up a Greek colony in Italy. Her brother Isaac put the proposal to the government of Siena and negotiations started. The Byzantine lady would govern a community of 100 Greek families in the marshy land of Maremma from the derelict castle of Montauto. The colony would have its own laws and customs and its inhabitants would be allies of Siena. The Sienese government was not averse to the proposal but for reasons unknown the project was never realised and Anna Notaras settled in Venice in 1475.
It was in Venice that Anna Notaras became a patron of the Greek community. She refused to go to a Roman church and became a persistent campaigner for the right of the Orthodox Greeks of Venice to worship in their own way and language. A Byzantine lady of illustrious lineage and considerable wealth, Anna Notaras placed herself at the centre of the dissemination of Greek scholarship through her support of Greek typography.
The conditions were ripe for the development of a Greek press: there was a literate Greek community and many Byzantine scholars who after the fall Constantinople had come to Venice, among them was Manutis and Kalliergis. The first book of the Greek press in Venice was the Etymologicum Magnum and its inscription paid tribute to Anna Notaras who bore the cost of its production.
The publication of the Etymologicum Magnum established Anna Notaras as a patron of Greek typography in Venice. It took six years to produce and is one of the finest examples of Greek typography. The volume is printed in black and red and some of the decorations are allegedly based on Anna’s and her sister’s embroidery.
Anna Notaras died in Venice in 1507. A diarist of that time suggests that she was more than a hundred years old and a virgin.
Source
Donald Nicol, The Byzantine Lady: Ten Portraits, 1250-1500, Cambridge University Press, 2008
Etymologicum Magnum
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