Calogerà family

The Calogerà family (Greek: Καλογερά (Kalogera or Kaloghera, from Kalogeros), Croatian: Kalogjera and Kalođera) are an ancient Byzantine-, and later Greco-Venetian, noble gens that has 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. The Calogerà are studied in numerous registers of nobility, including the Libro d'Oro of Corfu, Wappenbuch des Königreichs Dalmatien (1873), 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. In 961 C.E., the Mediterranean island of Crete, which had been under Muslim rule for almost 150 years, was restored to the Byzantine Empire under the leadership of general-, and future emperor, Nikephoros Phokas. Legend provides that the Byzantine emperor sent 12 noble families from Constantinople, known as the archondopoula, to rule the island of Crete as archons. Of the reconquest of Crete, 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 Byzantines'] main city by arms and led them triumphantly to the Curupa Hippodrome. [He] left St. Nicone 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.