The Calogerà family (), also recorded as Kalogeras or Kaloghera, were a Byzantine, and later Greco-Venetian noble family that produced many important individuals in the history of Europe and Brazil. With origins in Cyprus and Byzantium, the family achieved levels of wealth, prominence, and aristocracy over the centuries in branches found across modern Greece, Italy, Croatia, Serbia, Albania, Romania, France, and Brazil.Antonio Gontijo de Carvalho, Calogeras, Companhia Editora Nacional, São Paulo, 1935, translated from Portuguese.See Silvio Fernandes Lopes, "João Pandiá Calógeras" in Revista de Historia, p. 290. The Calogerà are studied in numerous registers of nobility, including the Libro d'Oro of Corfu, Wappenbuch des Königreichs Dalmatien (1873),See von Rosenfeld, Wappenbuch des Königreichs Dalmatien, p. 101. Livre d'Or de la Noblesse Ionienne (1925), and Heraldika Shqiptare (2000), among others. Members and descendants of this family continue to serve important roles in their respective countries to this day.
History The family claims descent from the legendary Twelve noble families of Crete variously claimed to have been settled on the island either by Emperor Alexios I Komnenos () or already by Nikephoros Phokas (). Thus the early 17th-century cartographer Vincenzo Coronelli included the following information in Biblioteca Universale Sacro-Profana: [...] Many succeeding emperors tried to take back [Crete from the Muslim rulers]; but it was always in vain, and with losses. Finally [...], Romanos II recommended the enterprise to Nikephoros Phokas, who, after seven months of cruel war, on March 4th, 961 [C.E.], destroyed the Saracens, took Candia as [the Saracens'] main city by arms and led [the Cretan emir Kouroupas] triumphantly to the Hippodrome. [He] left St. Nikon to return the Christian religion [to the island], and a colony of twelve noble families to propagate it, who were families Armena; Calojera; Anatolica; Curiaci, i.e., Saturnini, now called Cortazzi; Vespesiani, called Meliseni; called Sutili; Pampini, called Ulastò; Romuli, called Claudi; Aliati, called Scordili Colonesi, called Coloini; Orsini, called Areulada; and Phoca of Nikephoros Phokas' own blood. [These families were called] the First Ones, later the Arghondopuli [archontopoula], from the word arghia, which means magistrate, rector, or commander, because they dominated the island for many long years ahead of the convulsions of the [Byzantine] Empire, and they were perhaps the greatest enemies of the [Venetian]Republic, even though they also benefitted the most [under Venetian rule].Calojera in bold. Coronelli, Biblioteca Universale Sacro-Profana, p. 940.
It is likely that Coronelli’s inclusion of the Calogerà in the 12 noble families of Crete, or archontopoula, is based on Andrea Corner's (1547 – ) Storia di Candia, the first literary work to deal exclusively with the island’s history.Andrea Corner, Storia di Candia, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana (BNM), Venice, It. VI. 286 (5985) Similarly, in Revue de l'Orient Latin, Vol. 11 (1908), Louis-Ernest Leroux provides further context in the following passage: Thus, [ Nikephoros Phokas ] subdued and ransacked the whole island, which for 142 years had been occupied and lorded by barbarians, and he had it settled and left in the form of a colony, for its greater security, under noble families originally from Constantinople [nobili Costantinopolitani] of the Màggiori and of the Senatorial order, namely: the Armeni; the Caleteri; the Anatolici, also called Cortezzi; the Cargenti, that is, Saturnini; the Vespesiani, also called Melissini; […] the Sutili; the Papiliani, also called Vlasti; the Romuli, also called Claudi; the Aliotti, also called Scordilli; the Colonessi, also called Coloini; the Irtini, also called Arculendi; and the Phoca, of the same blood of the Phoca from whom the noble house of Calergi originated., Revue de l'Orient Latin, Vol. 11, 28 Rue Bonaparte, Paris, 1908, p. 111, translated from French, Caleteri in bold.
Numerous other historians have written about the Calogerà family over the centuries. In his 1935 book Calogeras, Antonio Gontijo de Carvalho describes the family's origins: belonged a traditional European family that originated, according to some historians, from the island of Cyprus. The family’s name is associated with a Greek word that translates to "good, old man" or "respectable by age." It derives from the term for an Oriental monk. Formerly, the word also referred to Latin hermits. But the qualifier has since been applied to Greek schismatics, male or female, who observe the rule of St. Basil or St. Marcellus. By its etymology, the word refers only to elder monks, but its use has been extended to include all of the monks living at Mt. Athos. [...] One fifth century family member, St. Calogerus, exists in universal hagiology and also figures in the family's coat-of-arms. With the schism of the Orthodox Church, one part [of the family] continued in the Roman apostolic rite; the other, more numerous, part adhered to the Eastern creed. In her father's biography The Alexiad, Anna Komnene gives the explanation that, having come to reside in Byzantium, [the Calogerà family] formed alliances with the Komnenos [Note though that the name Kalogeras does not in fact appear in the Alexiad, nor in any Komnenian-era source, cf. Prosopography of the Byzantine World]. During the Ottoman conquests, numerous bearers of the Calogerà name fell victim to the Turks. Breathtaking works such as Chiotis' Historia de Zante, Marmora's Historia de Corfú, Eugene Rizo Rangabé's Livre d'Or de la Noblesse Ionienne, and the Genealogia delle Famiglie Venete each contain biographies of the most distinguished individuals of this important family. In 1431, John Calogerà assumed the post of adviser to Duke Acciaoli in Athens during Attica's period of short-lived sovereignty from [ Catalan rule in] southern Italy. In 1499, Ambassador Matheus Calogerà was sent to Venice on behalf of the Rector of Zante in order to obtain the constitution of [Venetian] territorial property from the Senate. Following the Turkish conquest of Cyprus in 1501 [sic], the Calogerà took refuge on the island of Crete, where they were inscribed in the Golden Book of the Nobility of that island, and they became feudatory barons under Venetian domination. Several members of the family entered the religious orders; innumerable others were distinguished in war and rendered valuable services to the Republic of Venice, for which they were recognized in various decrees by the Senate and the Doges. In 1537, after the Siege of Suleiman [the Magnificent], families of the nobility, among whom were the main branch of the Calogerà, left Crete to settle in Corfu. The Calogerà were inscribed in the Golden Book of this island in 1644 and thereafter never ceased to appear in every list of its nobles. After the conquest of Crete by the Turks in 1669, another branch, which had remained on the island [of Crete], was to settle in [the city of] Venice, where its members were immediately assimilated into the nobility [sic], [and whose nobility was] confirmed by the Emperor of Austria in 1816 when the Adriatic city was occupied by that mighty nation. Upon the death of a certain General Calogerà, aide-de-camp to King Constantine of Greece, the senior branch of the Calogerà family of Corfu went extinct, as he left behind no descendants of his own. Among others, the family produced such illustrious individuals as Draco Calogerà (b. 1540), second son of Dimo, who led as Admiral in the Venetian navy, as did relatives Francesco Calogerà (b. 1599) and Zorzi Calogerà (b. 1677). Antonio Calogerà, head of the Venetian branch, was killed in 1684 in the taking of Nauplia, when the Venetian fleet fought to reclaim the Morea [from Ottoman rule]. Several members of the family were awarded knighthoods in the Order of Saint Mark. In the in Venice, one finds, surmounted by his coat-of-arms, the tomb of Demetrio Calogerà, who died in 1682 and who was a direct descendant of the main branch of Corfu. John Paul Calogerà, who died in 1702, was the Venetian military governor of Bergamo. Spiridion Calogerà, killed in 1754, was admiral of the arsenal in Corfu. And Marco Calogerà was Bishop of Kotor, Dalmatia, in 1856.
Gontijo de Carvalho is not the only historian to mention a relationship between the Calogerà and Komnenos families. In a description of the events of a 13th-century rebellion against the Venetian domination of Crete, Marcus Antonius Coccius Sabellicus (1436–1506) writes the following selection in Dell' Historia Venitiana:
In the Brazilian journal Revista de Historia (1961), Volume 22, No. 46, historian Sílvio Fernandes Lopes writes: In Brazilian onomastics, the names Pandiá and Calógeras evoke, at once, the Greek flavor behind their etymologies: Pandiá reminds the bearer of eclecticism and universalism, while Calógeras conjures up monastic respectability and the wisdom of the elders of St. Basil and St. Marcellus. [The Calógeras family] dates back to an historical and almost mythological Cyprus, where they originated. [...] From beginning all the way to the present, a brilliant genealogical succession can be observed in this family. [...] A Calógeras shines in the hagiological calendar as early as the fifth century, extolling excellent virtues, religious struggles, and the evolution of spiritual postulates in the person of a saint. Byzantium, Athens, Venice, and Crete have all welcomed the Calógeras family through the centuries. In 1644, they appear in Corfu. [Members of this family] sparkled spirits and cultures in the likes of Draco Calógeras, Dino and Francesco, and Zorzi and Antonio, at the head of events in the greater history of the Republic of Venice that would alter the organization and political distribution of the Mediterranean world. For this reason, the arms of Demetrius Calógeras would be featured in the golden and blue panel of the in Venice; John Paul would glow in the military history of Bergamo; Spiridion would die as Admiral of the Arsenal of Corfu in the eighteenth century; and Marco Calógeras would die as Bishop of Cattaro [sic] in Dalmatia in the mid-nineteenth century. Theologians, writers, poets, philologists, philosophers, admirals, generals, sociologists, tribunes, jurists, doctors, and engineers all appear in great numbers in this immense family, which, ever and always illustrious over the centuries, finally arrived in Brazil in 1841 in the person of João Batista Calógeras (grandfather of João Pandiá Calógeras). João Batista, who was a close friend of the Baron de Lafitte—a celebrated banker and minister of King Louis Philippe—lead a financial initiative [on behalf of] that famous man of pecunia [in Brazil].See Sílvio Fernandes Lopes, "João Pandia Calógeras" in Revista de Historia, pp. 289-290.
Giovan Battista di Crollalanza's masterpiece, Dizionario Storico-Blasonico delle Famiglie Nobili e Notabili Italiane, Estinte e Fiorenti (1886), describes the Venetian- and Dalmatian branches of the family: