Manto Mavrogenous was a prominent figure of the Greek Revolution, one of the few women who distinguished themselves in the Struggle. Her baptismal name was Magdalene and she was born in Trieste in 1796 to a wealthy Greek family. Her father, Nikolaos Mavrogenis, a descendant of the famous Phanariot family of Mavrogenis with origins from the Cyclades, was involved in trade. Her mother, the Mykonian lady Zacharati Antoniou Chatzi Bati, was multilingual and kept the ledgers of her husband’s commercial activities. Her father was also a member of the Filiki Eteria, which she actively followed from 1820.

With the outbreak of the Greek Revolution, she left Tinos, where she had been living after her father’s death in 1818, and fled to Mykonos, where she led the uprising of the island’s inhabitants against the Turks. With ships, two of which were equipped with her own money, she pursued the pirates that were plaguing the Cyclades and then fought in Pelion, Phthiotis and Livadeia. The financial support of the Struggle by Manto Mavrogenous and her actions in general, such as her letters to the philhellenes of France and England, made her name legendary in European philhellenic circles and her portrait was printed and circulated throughout Europe in 1827.