Pietro Cornaro, also known as Peter Cornaro or Corner (died in 1387 or 1388), was Lord of Argos and Nauplia in Frankish Greece from 1377.
Pietro was the son of Federico Cornaro of the Santa Lucia branch. [1] He was born before 1363. [1] Being one of the wealthiest Venetian patricians of his age, Federigo could afford to conduct his own foreign policy. [1] Historian Anthony Luttrell proposes that Federigo arranged Pietro's marriage with Maria of Enghien, Lady of Argos and Nauplia, in 1377 most probably because he wanted to establish a commercial basis in the Peloponnese. [1] The Senate of Venice authorized him on 16 July 1377 to arm a galley and to transport Maria to Venice. [1]
Pietro's marriage with Maria made him her co-ruler in 1377, but he was still young. [1] His father took care of the defense of Argos and Nauplia and sent supplies to the two towns in 1378. [1] Federigo also bought a galley to defend the lordship against pirates in 1381. [1] Heavy taxation during the War of Chioggia and a financial crisis menaced the family's position, but Pietro could keep his lordship after his father died in 1382. [1] Pietro went to Argos to command the defense of Argos and Nauplia against the pirates in 1383. [1] He returned to Venice, but he was planning to again visit his lordship in early 1385. [2] Pietro was one of the lords in Frankish Greece whom King Peter IV of Aragon informed about his appointment of Bernard of Cornella as his vicar-general in the Duchy of Athens on 17 August 1387. [3] Pietro died in 1387 or 1388. [4] [2] His widow sold the lordship to Venice on 12 December 1388. [4]
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.
Walter VI of Brienne was a French nobleman and crusader. He was the count of Brienne in France, the count of Conversano and Lecce in southern Italy and claimant to the Duchy of Athens in Frankish Greece.
During the late Middle Ages, the two cities of Argos and Nauplia formed a lordship within the Frankish-ruled Morea in southern Greece.
Isabella of Brienne (1306–1360) was suo jure Countess of Lecce and Conversano, claimant to the Duchy of Athens and Kingdom of Jerusalem, etc.
Louis of Enghien titular Duke of Athens, Count of Brienne and Lord of Enghien in 1381–1394, Count of Conversano in 1356–1394.
The House of Cornaro or Corner were a Venetian patrician family in the Republic of Venice and included many Doges and other high officials. The name Corner, originally from the Venetian dialect, was adopted in the eighteenth century. The older standard Italian Cornaro is no longer common in Italian sources referring to earlier members of the family, but remains so in English.
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.
The Navarrese Company was a company of mercenaries, mostly from Navarre and Gascony that fought in Albania and Greece during the late 14th and early 15th centuries, in the twilight of Frankish power in the dwindling remnant of the Latin Empire. "Navarrese Company" is a modern informal term for the soldiers and is thus somewhat inaccurate.
Juan Fernández de Heredia was a knight from the Crown of Aragon who served as Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller from 24 September 1377 to his death. His tenure was occupied by the "affair of Achaea", the persistent, but ultimately fruitless, efforts by the Knights to acquire the Principality of Achaea in southern Greece. He was also a great patron of the translation and composition of historiographical works in the Aragonese language and a counsellor to two Kings of Aragon.
Guy I de la Roche (1205–1263) was the Duke of Athens, the son and successor of the first duke Othon. After the conquest of Thebes, Othon gave half the city in lordship to Guy.
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.
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 War of the Euboeote Succession was fought in 1256–1258 between the Prince of Achaea, William of Villehardouin, and a broad coalition of other rulers from throughout Frankish Greece who felt threatened by William's aspirations. The war was sparked by Villehardouin's intervention in a succession dispute over the northern third of the island of Euboea, which was resisted by the local Lombard barons with the aid of the Republic of Venice. The Lord of Athens and Thebes, Guy I de la Roche, also entered the war against William, along with other barons of Central Greece. Their defeat at the Battle of Karydi in May/June 1258 effectively brought the war to an end in an Achaean victory, although a definite peace treaty was not concluded until 1262.
Boniface of Verona was a Lombard Crusader lord in Frankish Greece during the late 13th and early 14th century. A third son from a junior branch of his family, he sold his castle to equip himself as a knight, became a protégé of Guy II de la Roche, Duke of Athens, expelled the Byzantines from Euboea in 1296, and advanced to become one of the most powerful lords of Frankish Greece. Following Guy II's death, he served as regent for the Duchy of Athens in 1308–09, and was captured by the Catalan Company in the Battle of Halmyros in March 1311. The Catalans held Boniface in high regard, and offered to make him their leader. Boniface refused, but retained close relations with them, sharing their hostility towards the Republic of Venice and its own interests in Euboea. Boniface died in late 1317 or early 1318, leaving his son-in-law, the Catalan vicar-general Alfonso Fadrique, as the heir of his domains.
The Frankokratia, also known as Latinokratia and, for the Venetian domains, Venetokratia or Enetokratia, was the period in Greek history after the Fourth Crusade (1204), when a number of primarily French and Italian states were established by the Partitio terrarum imperii Romaniae on the territory of the dismantled Byzantine Empire.
The Battle of Megara occurred in 1359 between an alliance of the Christian states of southern Greece, and of a Turkish raiding fleet. The battle was a victory for the allies.
Paolo Foscari was a Venetian noble and churchman, who rose to become Bishop of Castello in 1367–1375, and Latin Archbishop of Patras from 1375 until his death in 1393/4. In the latter capacity he played a leading role in the affairs of the Principality of Achaea.
Maria of Enghien, also known as Marie of Enghien or d'Enghien, was the Lady of Argos and Nauplia in Frankish Greece from 1376 or 1377 to 1388. Because she was a minor when she inherited the lordship from her father, Guy of Enghien, his brother, Louis of Enghien, was appointed to be her guardian. Louis gave Maria in marriage to a Venetian patrician, Pietro Cornaro, in 1377. Maria moved to Venice, but she was involved in the administration of her lordship. After her husband died, she sold the lordship to the Republic of Venice for a regular income in 1388.
Erard III Le Maure was Baron of Arcadia and Marshal of the Principality of Achaea in the mid-14th century.
Federico Cornaro or Corner was a 14th-century Venetian patrician, merchant and politician. In 1379, he was accounted the richest man in Venice, having become wealthy from his sugar plantations in Cyprus. He used this wealth to buy his son a marriage with the heiress of the Lordship of Argos and Nauplia in Greece, which he de facto ruled in their name until his death.