The commercial transactions of Venice - the Serenissima ("Most Serene Republic") - with the Byzantine Empire, which made the former a centre of transit trade, incited many Greek merchants to select this city to settle already from the last centuries of Venetian history. In addition, the fact that significant possessions of the Empire had passed under the Venetian control after the fourth crusade (1204) with the partitio Romanie as well as the decision of the Great Council (maggior consiglio) in 1271 (having resulted from the Venetian-Byzantine treaty of 1267-68) which favoured the free migration of Greeks to Venice, were conditions that facilitated the migration of Greeks of the Venetian ruled regions (mainly Crete, Cyprus and the Ionian islands) to Venice. Before the fall of Constantinople, many scholars and professors of the Greek language seek more favourable living and working conditions in Venice of Renaissance. However, the oppression of the Ottomans and the final break-up of the Byzantine Empire created a mass wave of population movement from the Byzantine territories. A great number of migrants were assimilated by Venice. The Greek colony of Venice was reinforced at such an extent that very soon the Greeks constituted the largest foreign population of the city.

The free practice of the religious duties according to the eastern dogma (rito greco) was one of the prime concerns of the new settlers. The arrangement of this matter demanded time-consuming efforts due to which the Greek Brotherhood experienced a series of crisis. Initially, the settlers could practice their religious duties only in private places since the orthodox priests were considered as "schismatics" by the Venetian authorities. The Council of Florence in 1439 gives the Greek orthodox of Venice the permission to hold their liturgy in Catholic temples, mainly in the temple of Saint Vlassios, under the supervision of the Roman Catholic clergy. With the contribution of the cardinal Isidoros, metropolite of Kiev, the Greeks of Venice proceeded by petitioning for the acquirement or erection of their own church. The first permission to build a church was given to the Greeks by the Venetian Senate in 1456 but it was never utilized since the decision of the ten membered council was immediately revoked. A new decision of the Venetian Senate in 1470 restricted the possibilities of the temple of Saint Vlassios. It is an attempt that has been interpreted mostly as a measure of political control of the Venetian state on a considerable foreign community of the city.

It was in 1498 when, after more unsuccessful similar efforts, the Greeks asked from the ten member council the permission to found a Brotherhood based on the regulations of the corporations and those of other national minorities of Venice, such as the Albanian and Dalmatian. Saint Vlassios was defined as the see of the Brotherhood and Saint Nikolaos the patron saint. It was planned to be a popular organization of a national group (confraternita or scuola) while the main objectives of the Brotherhood were the provision of charitable services (the care of the ill and wounded in wars and the relief of orphans and poor people). The affirmative answer of the ten member council in November 28, 1498, gave the right to the Brotherhood to determine its regulation, to select its clergy, restricting in this way the intervention of the Patriarch of Venice, and to take decisions on internal matters of the Brotherhood as long as these did not conflict with the laws of the Venetian state. Already from the beginning of its composition, the Brotherhood maintained in its archive the regulation (mariegola), financial books and a register of the decisions of the administration organs of the Brotherhood.

The permission of the ten-membered council for the foundation of the Brotherhood also defined the the annual number of its members which was 250 men and an unlimited number of women. In the beginning, the number of the men and women inscribed officially as members of the Brotherhood and who fulfilled their financial duties on a regular basis was very small. The Brotherhood also accepted Serbs with which there were cultural and religious bonds and which could not compose an association of their own as they were very few. In the old books of the Brotherhood we find the title Scuola followed by the words: Delle Nazione Greca e Serva. Furthermore the Brotherhood represented the Eastern Church and the Balkan people in Venice. Later, the decision of 1572 which determined the participation percentage of the members in the issues of the Brotherhood according to the members' place of origin, restricted the participation of the Serbs.

The Greeks came mainly from Venetian ruled regions and most of them were seamen, merchants, manual workers, artisans, intellectuals and stradioti. The stradioti composed groups of light cavalry and played an important role in the military operations of Venice. The stradioto was mocked by the theatre as brave and proud but vainglorious and boastful, a sort of miles gloriosus, with a particular language idiom mixed with Italian words, the grechesco. Actually it is considered that the early participation of stradioti in the Greek Brotherhood formed a more favourable attitude of Venice towards this association.

In 1511, the Greeks once more appeal to the ten membered council asking the permission to obtain a piece of land in Venice in order to have a church of their own built there; a church consecrated to Saint Georgios, the patron saint of the warriors. They also mentioned that they had settled in Venice with their families and that the church of Saint Vlassios was insufficient for the increasing number of the Greek settlers and that the church was indispensable for them to serve the Serenissima more efficiently. This time the affirmative response was announced by the doge of Venice, Leonardo Loredan (April 30, 1514). Still there was the condition of the approval of the Pope. On the petition and the intervention of Ianos Laskaris and Marcus Musurus in the papal court, two successive and almost the same Papal bulls of Pope Leo X (May 18, June 4, 1514) confirmed the permission for the construction of a Greek church. A third papal bull from Pope Clement VII (1526) confers to the Brotherhood the exceptional right of independence from the authority of the local ecclesiastic authorities, that is from the Latin Patriarchate of Venice, a fact that caused the reaction of the latter. However, the Venetian authorities stood by the side of the Brotherhood in the dispute with the Latin Patriarch (1527-28), who saw this permission as a restriction of his authority. Finally, the needed piece of land was bought in 1526 in a central point in the city - later known as the Campo dei Greci. The erection of the Saint Georgios church began in 1539 to be completed in 1573 since it demanded generous donations from the part of the Brotherhood members and from Greek merchants and shipowners that arrived at the port of Venice. But during this period also, the Brotherhood confronted problems related to its independence from the Latin clergy of Venice. These problems began with the action of the archbishop of Monemvasia Arsenios Apostolis, who was a priest of the orthodox church in 1534 but converted to Catholicism. The autonomy of the orthodox church was restored once more in 1546 to be maintained until the beginning of the 18th century.

The members of the Brotherhood were initially buried in the yard of the temple but also in the Campo dei Greci. The deaths of the Greeks were recorded in the respective Catholic parish register. The members would pay in advance for the burial expenses and the banner of the Brotherhood three lire irrespectively of their social class while the burial expenses of the poor were covered by the Brotherhood. The dead were accompanied to the entrance of the orthodox church by the Catholic priests. During the late phase of the Brotherhood's history, a part of the graveyard on the Saint Christophoro island and later a part of the graveyard on the island Saint Michele were conceded to the Brotherhood.

The administration of the Brotherhood was organized according to the general assembly of the members (capitolo generale) - which had a quorum with the presence of 25-30 members - and the fifteen membered council (banca) which was elected by the two year term of office general assembly. A three membered executive committee was determined as head of the council; the gastaldo (later guardian grande), the vicario and the scrivan were members of this committee. The other 12 members were called decani. Although the Brotherhood was initially brought under the competence of the ten membered council as a legal person, from 1534 onward it seems to depend on the provveditori di comun. At that time it was obliged to adapt its administration to the terms in effect from 1521 concerning the various Scuole Comuni of Venice, that is to add two sindici and two governatori in its administration. Moreover, the increase of its members during the second half of the 16th century led to the expansion of the general assembly into a quaranta e zonta body.

The number of the members of the Greek colony in Venice increases constantly, particularly after the successive conquest of Venetian possessions in the East by the Ottomans (Nauplion and Monemvasia in 1540, Cyprus in 1571). The Brotherhood was efficient in the reception of the refugees, who reached Venice and seeking refuge in the Metropole from the regional Venetian colonial state in the Levant. This is also attributed to the tradition in hospitality the Greek Brotherhood had developed.

Nevertheless, not all Greeks that arrived at times in Venice were integrated in the Brotherhood, either because they could not or because they did not want to. Thus, the examination of the history and the course of the Greek colony of Venice, as well as the demographic trends are related to the available information on the Brotherhood. However, many of the Greeks that lived and worked in Venice in the days of its thriving, made profit and were integrated in the economic and social life of democracy while they also developed relations with the aristocracy of the city (according to Gabriel Severos in 1591, the number of these Greeks was over than 4000 out of the 150000 habitants of the city).

A little after the composition of the Brotherhood, the donations and benefactions of its members increase in response to the aims of the Brotherhood. The members trust possessions and property, precious objects and money (sometimes extremely large amounts) to the Brotherhood for the promotion of its charitable activities. The Archive of the Brotherhood included a code of donations of the members (1563-1743) as well as a book of contributions for providing doweries to the Greek girls (1598-1620), amounts of money that were collected from irregular contributions (luminarie) and from the inscription rights which constituted the regular receipts of the Brotherhood.

The decoration of the church of the Brotherhood was made mainly from donations of the Brotherhood members. The decoration was based on the demands of the orthodox tradition with mobile icons, mural paintings and mosaics. Among those who worked for covering the walls of the church with paintings was Michael Damaskinos while many Greek artists, such as Marcus and Thomas Bathas, Ioannis Cyprios, Emmanuel Tzanfournaris, Antonios Vasilakis the Aliense as well as Domenikos Theotokopoulos were attracted by the prosperity of Venice and settled in the city. Apart from the painters, codifiers such as Ioannis Mauromatis, Kornilios Mourmouris, Andreas Darmarios, and Antonios Episkopopoulos work for the church decoration. Moreover, eminent Greek preachers offered their services to the church of Saint Georgios.

Venice was in the vanguard of the dissemination of the humanities already from the late 15th and early 16th century via the diffusion of the Greek studies, the thriving of typography because of a series of favourable laws, the spirit of liberalism -patavitae liberta- and the policy of independence from the papal court. The tradition of participation of Greek scholars in the publication of Greek books started with the complete edition of the works of Plato (1513) and numerous editiones principes of ancient Greek writers by Marcus Musurus; These publications resulted from his cooperation with Aldus Manutius. The interest and concern of Marcus Musurus for the preservation of Greek manuscripts resulted in a personal library of a great volume of Greek manuscripts. This library will constitute the basis of the Biblioteca Marciana of Venice on the donation of Marcus Musurus. Nikolaos Vlastos and Zacharias Kallergis had already founded a printing office in Venice since 1499. Many scholars (Antonios Eparchos, Nikolaos Sophianos, Nikandros Noukios) began publishing their original works in the thriving period of typography while others, mainly clergymen, were involved in the editing and critic publication of liturgical books of the orthodox church (monthly editions, schedules, books of psalms, etc.). This kind of books along with the school manuals (ecclesiastic books were the abc-books) and salutary books were promoted to a wide range of regions in the Greek orthodox East. On the other hand, there were various widely spread popular books that were not written in Venice but were published in printing offices founded in Venice by Greeks such as, Nikolaos Sophianos, Andreas Kounadis, Ippolytos Varelis, Vergis, etc. The printing activities will flourish in the 17th century with the thrive of the Cretan literature and the production of numerous Cretan books in Venetian printing offices and Greek publishing houses such as those of Nikolaos Glykys (founded in 1670), Nikolaos Saros (1685) and Dimitrios Theodosiou (1755).

As a product of consumption, the book constituted at that time a marketable one and was considered as a product of general trade. The dispatch of books from Venice was formed according to the existing demand in the regional areas. The production centre did not control the distribution of the publications. The merchants or the traders of the regional areas would ask their commission salesmen in Venice for the provision of books for which they had found a buyer. The job of a bookseller did not exist; not even in Venice. Moreover, rarely would a merchant try to trade books for which there were no certain buyers. Venice was the centre of the largest production of Greek scholar and popular publications until it was supplanted by Vienna at the end of the 18th century. During the period 1711-1731, according to the information of the archive of the Melou commercial house, 2900 volumes of books were exported from Venice only from the Melou commercial house.

The publication of many books was supported by the necessary contribution by the members of the Brotherhood who followed the example of the Byzantine Anna Palaiologina Notara. Anna Palaiologina Notara was one of the first refugees in Venice who financed the publishing of the Megalo Etymologiko of Marcus Musurus. Some of the Greeks that supported these activities are Greek merchants such as, G. Melos, D. Peroulis, L. Saros and K. Selekis. The prosperity of the Greek colony was linked at a great extent to the action of its members in trade already since the early phases of the colony, as above-mentioned, when Saint Nikolaos of the seamen was chosen for patron saint. For the Serenissima which based its economy on trade, the possessions in the Levant constituted the network of its commercial centres. The habitants of these possessions had the possibility to participate in this trading activity, the centre of which was Venice. At the end of the 15th and in the beginning of the 16th century, many private banks of Venice went bankrupt and the new patricians little by little abandoned the marine life and became landowners of the Italian inland. In this way, the relations of the Venetian economy with the foreign merchants were strengthened and consequently the Greeks benefited from this. It is estimated that during the 16th century, 15-20 ships that came from Greek regions of the East sailed into the port of Venice. The seamen inscribed as members of the Greek Brotherhood in Venice - permanent settlers or regular visitors - worked in Greek or even Venetian ships while their name was often followed by "patrone di nave", a term that referred to the ship owner but very often to the captain of the ship too. The private-owned ships were mainly of small tonnage while there were also different types of ships of a larger tonnage.

Very often people would identify the qualities of a seaman with those of a merchant. The merchant-members of the Brotherhood would trade a wide range of products: textiles, animal hides, wine, cereals, wool, olive oil, etc. The organization of the commercial activity was based mainly on the "companionship" or "company" which was made up of the the principle partners accompanied by various agents. These agents would meet the producer in order to make arrangements for the provision of the regional agricultural products or the distribution of the western industrial products in the internal market. What is more, the Greek merchants of the Venetian ruled regions who were into commercial transactions with Venice knew the method of the insurance contract from the end of the 16th century as there is evidence on the insurance policies of the cargo and ships from the old archive of the Brotherhood. There were merchants, members of the Greek Brotherhood, who gathered capital and obtained property in Venice such as the Kouvlidis family, the Samariadis family and Andreas Kourkoumelis who was an owner of many ships and expanded his activities by cooperating with foreign commercial companies. As for the presence of the seamen-merchants in the Brotherhood affairs, they participated in both the financial support and administration.

The importance of self-determination through a dogma and religious practices leads us to a review of the history of the religious life of the Brotherhood which by inference influenced all the Greek settlers in Venice. In this framework the institution of the metropolite of Philadelphia was of great significance. Gabriel Severos, the priest of the Brotherhood church was consecrated metropolite of Philadelphia in 1577 from the patriarch of Constantinople. But, instead of settling in Crete as he ought to, the Venetian authorities obliged him to remain in Venice for political reasons. Thus, the Brotherhood benefited from his presence, offered him an annual compensation and acknowledged him as its ecclesiastic head. The esteem toward Severos made the Venetian authorities gradually pay honours to Severos and persuade the ecumenical patriarch Ieremias II not to recall Severos to Crete. Consequently, Severos became the first archbishop in Venice under the direct spiritual authority of the patriarchate of Constantinople and totally independent from the pope and the Catholic church. This must be considered as a result of the policy of religious independence that Venice followed in general at that period while it also derived from the importance of the Greek Brotherhood for Venice. After the death of Severos, the Brotherhood itself proceeded to the election of his successor and the see of the archbishop of Philadelphia was de facto transferred to Venice. The repute and the importance of the archbishop office are proved by the ecclesiastic personalities who were at times candidates for this position. The election was carried out by the general assembly of the Brotherhood and was ratified by a signet of the ecumenical patriarchate. This position was later occupied by Gerasimos Vlachos (1678-85), a person of great prestige because of his philosophical education. The establishment of this institution made Venice the Constantinople of the Venetian ruled East for the orthodox populations, that is what Constantinople was for the Ottoman ruled regions. In addition, this was also important for Venice after its withdrawal to the Ionian islands and the Adriatic Sea as 50 parishes of Dalmatia asked to be integrated in the Venetian state at the end of the 18th century because of the annoyances of their Catholic populations.

The dogmatic issue rose in the early 18th century to agitate the Brotherhood and its relations with the Venetian state because of a metropolite of Philadelphia, Meletios Typaldos (1685-1713) who acknowledged the authority of the pope. The crisis reached a peak with the aphorism of Meletios Typaldos by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 1712. After his death the uneventful appointment of a successor proved to be particularly difficult since Venice demanded from the candidates their declaration of catholic faith and the Patriarchate of Constantinople refused to ratify a metropolite that would make such a declaration. A considerable number of Greeks unwilling to accept the spiritual power of priests subjected to the Catholic Church abandoned the city. This effected the power of the Brotherhood as the number of Greeks was reduced. The agitation lasted until the end of the century with the appointment of Sophronios Koutouvalis in 1780 from whom Venice did not demand such a condition as it adopted the previous policy of religious tolerance (unfortunately a little before its decline). Despite the religious turbulence that the Brotherhood experienced and the economic decline, the Greek merchant-members of the Brotherhood supported financially its schools in the Turkish ruled areas (Athens, Ioannina, Patrai, Delvino, etc).

The educational needs of the Greek colonies were covered until the end of the 16th century by public Greek teachers. These teachers were scholars that settled temporarily in Venice such as Georgios Trapezountios, Dimitrios Moschos, Nikolaos Sophianos, Antonios Eparchos and Marcus Musurus. The contribution of the first metropolite of Philadelphia in the educational matters of the Brotherhood was important. He managed to obtain from the Venetian Senate in 1610 the regular annual financing of 150 ducats to the Brotherhood for the expenses of a Greek-Latin school which already operated from 1593 and was preserved until the end of the 18th century for the needs in elementary education. Modern scholars taught in this school and were payed by the Brotherhood. Later many students and professors of the Plaghineios College offered teaching in the Greek-Latin school. It was on the initiative of Severos that the convent attached to the temple of the Brotherhood was founded in 1599. Apart from religious activities this covent developed elementary educational activities for its few nuns. The Brotherhood will also support financially a girls' elementary school from 1854 onward. This school operated as a community institute from 1847 in a hall of the above-mentioned convent.

Moreover, the higher education of the Brotherhood were covered more efficiently by the operation of the Phlaghineios College, a legacy of Thomas Phlaghinis (1573-1648). Thomas Phlaghinis who was a doctor of the University of Padova, a public attorney in Venice and had participated in the administration of the Brotherhood himself, had turned to the Venetian Authorities in 1624 to stress the need of the foundation of such an institute for the Greeks of Venice, expressing at the same time his alarm for the action of the Jesuits. Later, the Brotherhood itself will bring up this demand. Finally, Thomas Phlaghinis bequeaths an amount of money, sufficient for the creation of this institute while he also responds to other charitable needs of the Brotherhood. The Phlaghinios College was lodged in a private-owned building and was brought under the spiritual surveillance of the riformatori of the University of Padova, that of the metropolite of Philadelphia and the vicar of the Brotherhood's church. It offered hospitality to twelve students but the lessons - Grammar, Literature, Rhetoric, Logic and Philosophy - could also be attended by external students. Many of them continued their studies in the University of the neighbouring city of Padova which was under the protection of the Venetian state and constituted the basic centre of of higher education for the Greeks for several centuries. It is estimated that during the 132 years of operation of the Phlaghineios College (1665-1797) about 550 students studied for 3-4 years average stay. It was an educational centre but it also developed publishing activities such as the publishing of the collection Anthi Euvlaveias (1708) and the four volume Philological Encyclopaedia of I. Patousa (1710).

The only evidence for the existence of a Greek hospital in Venice during the 16th century are the death certificates of Fransisco Zuane from Heraklion (1582), Fiorina of Mastro Gieronimo Terbaruol (1585) and Bartolomio of Mastro Zuane Specier (1594) who died there. There is more information on their death in the Archivio Parrochiale di S. Pietro di Venezia (Necrologi) of the 16th century. In addition, a part of the Phlaghinis legacy, according to the desire of the legator - apart from providing doweries to Greek girls, buying off hostages, the annual allocation to prisoners, poor Greeks, vicars of the Greek Church - was intended for the foundation of a hospital of the Brotherhood. Thomas Phlaghinis himself outlined the operation of the Greek hospital as follows: a couple of houses would be available and prepared with 8-10 beds for the poor Greek patients; men will be in separate rooms from women. The hospital will be under the supervision of the archbishop and the church priests whereas the doctor will nurse not only the patients in the hospital but also the residents of the nearby streets. The caretakers of the Venetian hospitals founded the hospital of the Brotherhood in accordance with the legator's will. The Brotherhood selected the eminent architect Badassare Longhema; the hospital was lodged in the first floor of the Brotherhood building and the construction expenses amounted up to 14000 ducats. Many Greeks went to the hospital, especially after the loss of Crete, pretending to have been affected by some illness in order to obtain the 2 ducats allocation as provided by the legacy. This made the Provveditori di Ospedali (1694) give an order to the direction of the hospital according to which no one was to be accepted without a doctor's certification describing the illness and no one was entitled to the allocation without a 20 day stay in hospital. The hospital operated until 1797 while it also operated after the mid-19th century thanks to the new legacy of Giorgio Edoardo Pickering in 1843. It closed definitely in 1900.

The treaty of Passarowitz in 1718 finalized the withdrawal of Venice from the greatest part of its Greek possessions. At this time the last and longer phase of its history starts. It is characterized by its steady withdrawal from the European political scene and its constant economic decline. The economic decline of Venice was accelerated by the commercial competition with its traditional adversaries in the Mediterranean: the French (particularly after the renewal of the French-Turkish capitulations in 1740), the English and the Dutch. Additional obstacles arose with the emergence of other commercial centres on the Italian peninsula such as the "free" port of Livorno, that of Ancona and mainly the neighbouring port of Trieste which disputed already from the mid-18th century a predominating position in the Adriatic Sea. The Greeks of Venice who were closely related to its commercial activities were negatively affected.

The advancing decline of the Brotherhood and the impression that it depended on the tolerance of the local political authorities did not allow the undertaking of risky initiatives in conditions such as the fluidity of the political situation (the French invasion in Italy and the subjection of Venice for a long period to the Austrian power which was hostile toward the attempts of the Greeks for national liberation) in the Italian peninsula from the end of the 18th century up to the Italian unification. Members of the Greek colony must have maintained some of their activities. However, there is no evidence in the official archive of the Brotherhood because the administration was obliged to avoid any kind of involvement in these events. In Venice, as in other centres of Greek settlers, there was opposition between the party of the new political preaching of democratic France and that of the conservatives, particularly clergy men, that reacted to the unprecedented ideas. There is evidence on the participation of Brotherhood members in conversations in Venetian centres that accepted the French ideas. The final abolition of the Venetian democracy in 1797 from Napoleon was undoubtedly a fatal blow for the Greek Brotherhood. Capital, precious objects and other goods were bounded by Napoleon and were never regained despite their legal claim.

The French rule of Venice was very soon replaced by the Austrian domination (treaty of Campoformio, 1797) which was cautious towards the members of the colony. After a small period of annexation of Venice to the so-called Regno d'Italia, Austrian occupation was restored. The archives of the Austrian police verify the initiation of Greeks of Venice and members of the Brotherhood into the Italian masonic lodges as well as the existence of the "Company of the five" or the "Silence of the Greeks". The Austrian authorities were also interested in the persons connected to the expansion of the activity of the Philomoussos Etaireia of Venice. It is worth mentioning that there is no evidence concerning the initiation of members of the Brotherhood of Venice in the Philiki Etaireia. The Greek Brotherhood policy approached mainly the spirit and the pacific national-Enlightenment objectives of the Philomoussos Etaireia.

In fact, the reaction of the Greeks of Venice to the outbreak of the War of Greek Independence in 1821 was not vigorous compared mainly to the other Greek colonies which were flourishing at that time. The lack of enthusiasm - observed also by the Austrian police - and the unwillingness of the Greeks to collect money for the needs of the Greek Revolution were due to the acrimony they felt because of the damages caused to their trade in the eastern Mediterranean from the hostilities but also because of the fear of the Austrians. However the executive members of the Greek Community with Andreas Moustoxydis - a close friend of Ioannis Kapodistrias - as a leader took remarkable action in the War of Greek Independence. The textbook of 1821 with triumphal hymns, patriotic leaflets and verses of the zealous Panagis Kephalas that belong to the archive of the Community, can be considered as an element that aspired to the invigorating of the national sentiment of the Greeks. The solidarity of the Greeks of Venice to the revolted Greeks was based on four axes: the dispatch of arms and munitions, the volunteers, the collection of small amounts of money and mainly attending to the needs of the refugees and orphans.

The decline of both the Greek colony and the Brotherhood became definitive in the following years. The Greek population continued to decrease in an increasing rate due to the gradual settlement of the Greeks abroad in the newly founded Greek state from 1830 onward.

The colony of the Greek orthodox in Venice was the oldest and most important centre of the Greeks abroad. It maintained close social, economic and cultural bonds with many regions of the East that were inhabited by the Greeks. In this way the colony of Venice influenced the cultural development of the Greek nation in the course of the centuries that followed the fall of Constantinople. In the days of Vissarion, Venice was "vera-mente un'altra Bisanzio" while K. Paparrigopoulos claims that the Greek colony of Venice preserved the Greek tradition in the optimum way in a difficult period for the Greek nation and describes the colony as "la culla della Grecia moderna".

During the 19th century, the Brotherhood made efforts to survive and to protect its autonomy from the Austrian occupation of the Region Veneto. The recently united Italian state refused to acknowledge the Brotherhood as a national association and accepted it only as a religious and charitable organization. At that time scholars such as Bartolomaios Koutloumousianos, Andreas Moustoxydis, Aimilios Typaldos, Anthimos Mazarakis and Ioannis Veloudis as well as wealthy benefactors like Konstantinos Bogdanos, Georgios Pickering, Georgios Motsenigos and Ioannis Papadopoulos were members of the Brotherhood. Thanks to their donations, the Saint Georgios church was repaired, the Phlaghineios College, which operated until 1907 with a small number of students, was reorganized on the basis of elementary education. In addition, the Pickering legacy offered the possibility of a new operation phase (1846-1900) of the Brotherhood hospital. The Greek publishing houses were preserved (that of Theodosios was preserved until 1824 whereas the publishing house of Glykys until 1854) and new ones (Phoinikas, Saint Georgios) were founded and operated until the end of the 19th century. However, an internal discord in the Brotherhood caused the intervention of the Italian state in its affairs. As a result its council was abolished in 1907 and replaced by an Italian authority. During World War II, the Brotherhood numbered only 30 members but conserved a considerable part of its property as well as historic and artistic treasures. A trilateral agreement between the Greek Brotherhood, the Italian and the Greek state was made in order to protect this heritage. In 1948, the Italian government permitted the foundation of the Institute of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies in Venice in exchange to the re-activation of the Italian Archeological School and the Italian Institute in Athens. The Brotherhood donated its movable and immovable property - the material base of the Institute - to the Greek state on the condition that it would undertake its operational expenses as well as the expenses of the maintenance of the Saint Georgios church.