ded on the element of surprise. Much confusion ensued as Turks and Christians ended up indiscriminately fighting friend and foe alike. The revolt ended in the abolition of all privileges granted to the Christian inhabitants, who were driven away from the castle area and had to settle around it. From then onwards, Turks and Jews were to be established in the castle area. The School of Despoton at the Church of Taxiarches, that had been operating since 1204 was closed. Aslan Pasha also destroyed the monastery of St John the Baptist within the city walls, killed the monks and in 1618 erected in its place a mosque, Aslan Camii, today a museum.
Center of Greek Enlightenment (1647–1830)
Despite that blow, the city managed to recover. Its inhabitants continued their commercial and handicraft activities which allowed them to trade with important European commercial centers, such as Venice and Livorno, where merchants from Ioannina established commercial and banking houses. The first three Greek owned printing presses that were operating in Venice and published thousands of books for the Ottoman ruled Greek people were established by members of the Ioannite diaspora: Nikolaos Glykys (1670), Nikolaos Sarros (1687) and Dimitrios Theodosiou (1755). Ioannina was the centre through which the books printed on these presses were channelled into Greece. These were significant historical, theological as well as scientific works, including an algebra book funded by the Zosimades family of Ioannitan benefactors, books for use in the schools of Ioannina such as the Arithmetica of Balanos Vasilopoulos, as well as medical books. At the same time these merchants and entrepreneurs maintained close economic and intellectual relations with their birthplace and founded charity and education establishments. These merchants were to be major national benefactors.
In the 17th century Ioannina was a thriving city with respect to population and commercial activity as
