It is generally accepted that Mando (short for Magdalene) was born in Trieste, a major Italian port city on the Adriatic coast on the border with Slovenia. The year was 1796. Recent research on the city's state archives, however, proposes that she was born in Mykonos, where her parents got married. The year was 1783, more than a decade before what is currently believed. It is uncontested that her family had considerable financial means. She was the daughter of a wealthy merchant from the Fanari neighbourhood in Istanbul. She also had a penchant for education, fostered by her Mykonian mother, who was lettered and active in her husband's business affairs. And she also had connections to the Greek revolution. Her father was a member of the Philike Etaireia, the "Society of Friends", which was a secret pre-revolutionary organisation largely credited with paving the way for the uprising. Her beauty had earned her the nickname "La Bella Greca" among foreign commentators in Trieste, where she stayed until she was 16.