Anna Notaras

Anna Notaras Palaiologina

Life in Italy Anna's exact whereabouts before 1459 are not certain, but in that year she appeared in Italy and made claim to the Notaras family inheritance, held at the Bank of Saint George in Genoa. The fate of this large inheritance had become a diplomatic question during the six years following the death of Loukas Notaras. She had her younger brother, Jacob Notaras, disinherited on the grounds that he had converted to Islam while in captivity. She lived for a time in Rome before eventually settling in Venice, where she became the center of the Greek community in Venice.

She repeatedly petitioned the Republic to allow the construction of an Orthodox church within Venice (something not granted until 1539) and when the Council of Ten prevaricated, she badgered them into a compromise, allowing her to build an oratory within her own sizable Casa and hold Orthodox services within it from 1475.

Fictional portrayals

Anna Notaras appears as a central character in The Dark Angel by Mika Waltari - where she fictionally dies, dressed in a soldier's clothes, during the final battle of the Fall of Constantinople. She also appears in Porphyry and Ash by Peter Sandham. Emel Özcan plays Anna in the Turkish series Mehmed: Fetihler Sultanı, where it's shown she had an affair with Giovanni Giustiniani but had to end up marrying Demetrios Palaiologos after her lover's death.