[1] Anastasi's merchant house had branches (staffed by family members or representatives) in important Mediterranean ports, among which Alexandria, Livorno, Smyrna, Thessaloniki, and Malta.
In Alexandria Anastasi was among the select Greek merchant families that dominated international trade as well as the Egyptian economy, the others being Casulli, Tossizza (or Tositsas) and Zizinia.
Closely involved with Muhammad Ali's urban modernisations in Alexandria, he built an okelle (semi-public building serving as city mansion, warehouse, and guest house) on the Place des Consuls.
He put together collections of high-quality objects, a process lasting several years, for sale to large-scale buyers in Western Europe.
[1][2] In 1826 Anastasi's first collection of antiquities was shipped to Livorno and stored in the warehouse of his agent Costantino Tossizza, where the objects could be viewed by prospective buyers or their representatives.
Jean Emile Humbert, in Livorno on the orders of Caspar Reuvens, acquired the collection for the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden, the Netherlands, in 1827.
[1] Anastasi had friendly relations with Egyptologists, among whom Jean-François Champollion and Karl Lepsius, offering them practical support and acting as a host during their expeditions in Egypt.