ENTRY TYPE
Persons |
SUMMARY
The Palaiologoi were the last Byzantine imperial dynasty and exercised power for almost two centuries (1259-1453). Nine emperors of the last period of the Byzantine Empire, from the recapture of Constantinople until the fall to the Ottomans (1261-1453), were members of the Palaiologian dynasty who tried in many ways to preserve the state under difficult circumstances, by giving an utmost importance on diplomacy (intermarriages, pro-union ecclesiastical policy). After the collapse of Byzantium (1453) and the fall of the Despotate of Morea on the hands of the Ottomans (1460) some members of the dynasty escaped in Italy while Zoe-Sophia Palaiologina, daughter of the despotes of Morea Thomas Palaiologos, became wife of the great prince of Moscow Ivan III. Enormous was the contribution of the Palaiologoi to the cultural flourishment of the Empire during the last decades of the 13th and the 14th century, known as “Palaiologian Renaissance”. |
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