Loukas Notaras

Loukas Notaras (Greek: Λουκᾶς Νοταρᾶς; 5 April 1402 – 3 June 1453) was a Byzantine Greek statesman who served as the last megas doux or grand duke (commander-in-chief of the Byzantine navy) and the last mesazon (chief minister) of the Byzantine Empire, under emperors John VIII Palaiologos and Constantine XI Palaiologos. Disputed Κρειττότερον ἐστὶν εἰδέναι ἐν μέσῃ τῇ Πόλει φακιόλιον βασιλεῦον Τούρκου, ἢ καλύπτραν Λατινικήν. It would be better to see the turban of the Turks reigning in the center of the City than the Latin miter. Reported in Doukas, Historia Turco-Byzantina, ch. 37, sect. 10; Harry Magoulias, Decline and Fall of Byzantium to the Ottoman Turks (Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1975) p. 210. The attribution is probably wrong; see Kenneth M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant, 1204–1571, Vol. 2: The Fifteenth Century (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1978) pp. 104–105, esp. note 91 Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 6 (1782; ed. H. H. Milman, 1845) ch. 68: "The Latins were the most odious of heretics and infidels; and the first minister of the empire, the great duke, was heard to declare, that he had rather behold in Constantinople the turban of Mahomet, than the pope’s tiara or a cardinal’s hat." External links Category:1400s births Category:1453 deaths Category:Eastern Orthodox Christians Category:Military leaders from Greece Category:Executed people