ABSTRACT
El Greco’s family was probably not native to the city of Candia. It is surely no accident that among the thousands of records for the period 1500-1575 that I examined I did not encounter a single other family bearing the name Theotokopoulos recorded either in Candia or its surrounding region.1 In my opinion this suggests that the family (specifically, El Greco’s father) did not take up residence in Candia earlier than the first decades of the century. The most likely provenance of the family was the region of Canea (modern Chania), where, from the fifteenth century on, members of the family are known to have been resident, in the village of Koustogerako Selinou.2 This village was the birthplace of the Chaniote rebel leader Georgios Gadanoleos (better known as Cantanoleos) and one of the main centres of his rebel activities (1526-1528).3 Among his rebel associates who were apprehended and executed by the Venetians in early 1528, a certain Leon Theotokopoulos, son of the late Georgios, of the village of Lakkous in the district of Kydonia, is mentioned.4 One of the more drastic measures taken by the Venetians after the suppression of this revolt was the forced eviction of the inhabitants of the villages of the region involved from their homes and resettlement elsewhere on the island (including the city of Candia) or beyond.5 The arrival of El Greco’s father Georgios Theotokopoulos in Candia in the late 1520s coincides chronologically with the end of the revolt and the eviction of the rebel families from their villages. The convergence of dates, together with the involvement of individuals of the same name in the revolt, cannot be coincidental. Although I cannot produce hard evidence to prove this point, I believe that Georgios Theotokopoulos came to
1 Mertzios, ‘Σταχυολογήματα’, 303 refers to a certain Michalis Strianos, otherwise known as Sekis Theotokopoulos, son of ‘the late’ Theotokis, in Candia in 1538, originally from Kainourgia Chora ton Karon (today’s Neapoli Meramvellou). See also Georgis Angelidis Theotokopoulos, son of Manolis, ‘from the village of Apano Viannos Rizokastrou’, who, on 24 April 1578, appointed in his place, as ‘antiskaro’, Nikolaos Kallergis, son of Manousos, resident of Candia [NC, b. 199 (Zorzi Petropulo), libro 3, f. ριςv]. In both these cases, however, the name is not a family name but a cognomen. Cattapan, ‘Nuovi elenchi’, 233 informs us that the surname Theotokopoulos appears on various occasions from the early fourteenth century onwards (presumably in the notarial records of Candia). On Mourinos Theotokopoulos of Moires Kainouriou (1684), see A.A. Kyros, Οἱ Ἕλληνες τῆς Ἀναγεννήσεως καὶ ὁ Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος, Athens 1938, 213-16.
