Ronchey, S. “Un'aristocratica bizantina in fuga: Anna Notaras Paleologina.” Donne a Venezia. Ed. Susanne Winter. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2004. 23-42.

After the fall of Constantinople, Anna Notaras, member of the wealthiest and most aristocratic family of the late Palaeologian period, swept away by the Turkish conquest, took refuge in Italy.  She settled first in Rome under the protection of Cardinal Bessarion, who with Pope Pius II was planning a “Western re-foundation of Byzantium” in the Despotate of the Morea.  After the failure of the crusade against the Turks in the Morea led by Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, Bessarion enlisted Anna in an attempt to establish a small Byzantine kingdom at Montauto, then under Sienese control, which never came to light despite the expense of considerable effort. After Bessarion’s death, in 1475 Anna moved to Venice, where, by means of her influence on the political establishment of the Serenissima, she devoted herself to keeping Byzantine cultural and religious traditions alive.  In her residence, she maintained an extensive Greek library and, in fact, became the first woman publisher, managing and financing the publication of Byzantine books, which were credited however to her close collaborator Zaccarias Kalliergis.  Furthermore, Anna fought successfully for religious freedom and the right of the Greek community of Venice to follow orthodox practice.  An important part of her will dealt with arrangements for the construction of the Byzantine Church of San Giorgio dei Greci, a focus still today of philo-Hellenism in Venice. The museum houses three icons – reproduced at the end of Ronchey’s essay – which belonged to Anna and were donated to the Greek community of Venice.

 

EXTERNAL LINKS

http://www.istitutoellenico.org/museo/index.html (webpage of museum of the Hellenic Institute of Venice)