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The Duchy of Athens was one of the Crusader states set up in Greece after the conquest of the Byzantine Empire during the Fourth Crusade as part of the process known as Frankokratia, encompassing the regions of Attica and Boeotia, and surviving until its conquest by the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century.
During the late Middle Ages, the two cities of Argos and Nauplia formed a lordship within the Frankish-ruled Morea in southern Greece.
The Duchy of Neopatras was a principality in southern Thessaly, established in 1319. Officially part of the Kingdom of Sicily, itself part of the Crown of Aragon, the duchy was governed in conjunction with the neighbouring Duchy of Athens, it enjoyed a large degree of self-government. From the mid-14th century, the duchies entered a period of decline: most of the Thessalian possessions were lost to the Serbian Empire, internal dissensions arose, along with the menace of Turkish piracy in the Aegean and the onset of Ottoman expansion in the Balkans. Enfeebled, the Catalan possessions were taken over by the Florentine adventurer Nerio I Acciaioli in 1385–1390. The title of Duke of Neopatras was held by the heir of the King of Sicily.
Nerio I Acciaioli or Acciajuoli was the de facto Duke of Athens from 1385 to 1388, after which he reigned uncontested until his death in 1394. Born to a family of Florentine bankers, he became the principal agent of his influential kinsman, Niccolò Acciaioli, in Frankish Greece in 1360. He purchased large domains in the Principality of Achaea and administered them independently of the absent princes. He hired mercenaries and conquered Megara, a strategically important fortress in the Duchy of Athens, in 1374 or 1375. His troops again invaded the duchy in 1385. The Catalans who remained loyal to King Peter IV of Aragon could only keep the Acropolis of Athens, but they were also forced into surrender in 1388.
Nerio II Acciaioli (1416–1451) was the Duke of Athens on two separate occasions from 1435 to 1439 and again from 1441 to 1451.
Bartolomeo Contarini was a Venetian businessman who married the widowed duchess of Athens Chiara Zorzi in 1453 and governed the duchy in the name of her infant son, Francesco I.
The margraviate or marquisate of Bodonitsa, today Mendenitsa, Phthiotis, was a Frankish state in Greece following the conquests of the Fourth Crusade. It was originally granted as a margravial holding of Guy Pallavicini by Boniface, first king of Thessalonica, in 1204. Its original purpose was to guard the pass of Thermopylae.
The Zorzi or Giorgi was a noble family of Venetian origin. They thrived in the Late Middle Ages, especially in the remnants of the Latin Empire in Greece, where they controlled the Margraviate of Bodonitsa and through marriage the Duchy of Athens until the Ottoman conquest.
Francis Zorzi (1337–1388), called Marchesotto, was a member of the Venetian Zorzi family and the Marquess of Bodonitsa in Central Greece from 1345 to his death.
Antonio I Acciaioli, also known as Anthony I Acciaioli or Antonio I Acciajuoli, was Duke of Athens from 1403.
Antonio II Acciaioli was the Duke of Athens from 1439 to 1445.
Francis or Francesco I Acciaioli was the son of Nerio II Acciaioli by his second wife Chiara Zorzi. He succeeded on his father's death in 1451 to the Duchy of Athens under his mother's regency.
Amadeus or Amedeo of Savoy was the son of James of Piedmont and his third wife Marguerite de Beaujeu. By James' will of 16 May 1366, he was declared his firstborn and heir. In 1367, he succeeded his father in his titles of Lord of Piedmont and Prince of Achaea. He was also the lord of Pinerolo.
Guglielma Pallavicini, the Lady of Thermopylae, was the last Pallavicino heir to rule in Bodonitsa, in Frankish Greece.
Louis Fadrique a Catalan nobleman who was Count of Salona, as well as lord of various other towns in Central Greece from ca. 1365 until his death in 1382. In 1375–1381 he also served as the vicar-general of the twin duchy of Athens and Neopatras.
Jacob Zorzi was the Marquess of Bodonitsa from 1388 to 1410. He was the last considered true ruler of the Frankish state of Bodonitsa.
Pietro Zeno, was lord of Andros from 1384 until his death in 1427, and a distinguished diplomat in the service of the Republic of Venice.
Turahanoğlu Ömer Bey was an Ottoman general and governor. The son of the famed Turahan Bey, he was active chiefly in southern Greece: he fought in the Morea against both the Byzantines in the 1440s and 1450s and against the Venetians in the 1460s, while in 1456, he conquered the Latin Duchy of Athens. He also fought in Albania, north-east Italy, Wallachia and Anatolia.
Bartolomea Acciaioli or Acciajuoli was the wife of Theodore I Palaiologos, Despot of the Morea from 1385. She was the elder daughter of Nerio I Acciaioli, who held large estates in Frankish Greece. She was famed for her beauty and her father gave her in marriage to the Despot to seal their alliance. Since her father and husband's relations deteriorated in the early 1390s, her father disinherited her in favor of her younger sister, Francesca, and their illegitimate brother, Antonio. Barolomea died childless.
Francesca Acciaioli or Acciajuoli was the wife of Carlo I Tocco, Count Palatine of Cephalonia and Zakynthos.
References
- 1 2 3 4 Miller, William (1908). The Latins in the Levant: A History of Frankish Greece (1204–1566). London: John Murray. OCLC 563022439.
