Heirs of the Palaiologoi emperors Direct Palaiologoi heirs and claimants The death of Constantine XI Palaiologos at Constantinople on 29 May 1453 did not mark the end of his family, the Palaiologos dynasty. In the aftermath of the city's fall, the threat of a military force uniting behind one of his surviving relatives and reclaiming Constantinople represented a real threat to the continued rule of Mehmed the Conqueror. Constantine did not have any children, but he did have surviving brothers, who represented the most prominent potential claimants to Byzantine imperial power. In the
Peloponnese, Constantine's two brothers
Demetrios (1407–1470) and
Thomas Palaiologos (1409–1465) ruled as co-
despots of the Morea. Though they were the most clear heirs, Demetrios and Thomas constantly bickered with each other and were unable to work together, ensuring that they would not represent a threat to Ottoman rule. Some of the more influential courtiers and refugees from Constantinople in the aftermath of 29 May raised the idea of proclaiming the elder brother Demetrios as the new emperor, in succession to Constantine, but Demetrios believed the wisest course of action was to instead placate the Ottomans and serve them as a vassal. Thomas, in sharp contrast to his older brother's policy, hoped to rally the papacy and western Europe into calling for a crusade to restore their empire. Tiring of the bickering of the brothers and the threat represented by Thomas's repeated appeals to the west, Mehmed invaded and seized the Morea in 1460, ending the despotate. After the fall of the despotate, Demetrios was captured by the Ottomans and was forced to turn over his wife and daughter,
Helena Palaiologina (1431–1469), to the sultan's harem. He was allowed to live out his life in relative comfort in Adrianople and eventually became a monk, dying in 1470. Helena had predeceased Demetrios and died without children of her own. The fate of Thomas was different, as he escaped to Italy with Venetian aid, settling in Rome after being rewarded with pensions and honours by the Pope. He spent much of the time until his death in 1465 travelling around Italy hoping to rally support for his cause. Thomas's eldest son,
Andreas Palaiologos (1453–1502), actively aspired to restore the Byzantine Empire, proclaiming himself as not only the Despot of the Morea in 1465 in succession to his father, but also the rightful 'Emperor of Constantinople' in 1483, the first and only of the post-1453 Palaiologoi to do so. Little came of Andreas's dreams, he died poor in Rome in 1502, having twice given up his imperial (though not despotal) claims, first to
Charles VIII of France in 1494 and later as part of his will, granting the titles to
Isabella I of Castile and
Ferdinand II of Aragon, and their descendants in perpetuity. Andreas is commonly believed not to have left any descendants, though it is possible that he had children. Figures that have been suggested to have been children of Andreas include
Constantine Palaiologos, employed in the papal guard and dead in 1508,
Maria Palaiologina, who married the Russian noble Prince Vasily Mikhailovich of
Vereya-
Belozersk, and
Fernando Palaiologos, an obscure figure described as 'the son of the Despot of the Morea' and recorded to have adopted that title after 1502. The second son of Thomas Palaiologos,
Manuel Palaiologos (1455 – 1512), eventually returned to Constantinople, much to the surprise of people in Western Europe, and lived out his life under Ottoman rule, dying at some point during the reign of Sultan
Bayezid II (1481–1512). Manuel had at least two sons: John (who died young), and
Andreas Palaiologos, named after Manuel's brother. Manuel's son Andreas is not believed to have had children of his own, and died at some point during the reign of
Suleiman the Magnificent (1520–1566). Andreas's death marks the end of the confidently verifiable imperial Palaiologos line, meaning that the last verified male-line Palaiologos descendants were extinct by the 16th century. Setton (1978) considered Demetrios Palaiologos to have been the head of the Palaiologos family 1453–1470, followed by Thomas's son Andreas Palaiologos from 1470 to 1502.
Matrilineal descent and other claims (1827–1884), the last of the
Tocco family|left Descendants of the Palaiologoi emperors have survived through the centuries in the female line (matrilineally). Thomas Palaiologos had two daughters:
Helena Palaiologina (1431–1473) and Zoe Palaiologina ( 1449–1503). The eldest daughter, Helena, married
Lazar Branković,
Despot of Serbia, with whom she had three daughters;
Jelena,
Milica and
Jerina Branković. The eldest daughter Jelena died childless, but the second daughter, Milica Branković, married
Leonardo III Tocco, the ruler of the
Despotate of Epirus, and had descendants. Beginning with Leonardo III's and Milica's son,
Carlo III Tocco (1464–1518), who lived in exile in Italy after Epirus was conquered by the Ottomans, the
Tocco family presented themselves as being the rightful Byzantine imperial dynasty. Carlo III is recorded in a text to have described himself as the heir of "the despots of Romania and Arta [and] the most serene houses of Serbia, Komnenoi and Palaiologoi, both imperial houses of Constantinople". The claim that they had succeeded the Palaiologoi in this role through inheritance did not change the titles claimed by the family, who still presented themselves as the titular despots of Epirus until the mid-17th century. In 1642,
Antonio Tocco, great-great-grandson of Carlo III, ceased to claim the despotate and instead claimed the title of
Prince of Achaea. This change in title is probably attributable to their Palaiologos ancestry, given that the wife of Thomas Palaiologos was
Catherine Zaccaria, daughter and heir of
Centurione II Zaccaria, the last Prince of Achaea. Through Thomas Palaiologos, the Tocco family thus represented the senior heirs to that title. The Tocco family went extinct in 1884 with the death of its final member,
Carlo III di Tocco Cantelmo Stuart (1827–1884), though living descendants exist. Milica Branković also has living descendants through the third and youngest daughter, Jerina. Jerina married
Gjon Kastrioti II, the son of Albanian national hero
Skanderbeg, and the couple's descendants survive today as the modern Italian
Castriota family. (pictured), claimed to be titular emperors of Constantinople from 1494 until they abandoned their claim in 1566. Thomas's younger daughter, Zoe, married
Ivan III, the grand prince of Moscow, in 1472 and was thereafter renamed Sophia. From Ivan III onwards, the rulers of Russia represented the clearest and most public descendants of the Palaiologoi emperors. Upon his marriage to Zoe, Ivan informally declared himself
tsar (emperor) of all the
Russian principalities. In 1480, he stopped paying tribute to the
Golden Horde and adopted the imperial
double-headed eagle as one of his symbols. Zoe was the grandmother of Russian tsar
Ivan the Terrible, making him a great-great-grandson of Byzantine emperor
Manuel II Palaiologos. Zoe's direct line of descendants died out in 1598. The
Romanov dynasty, which succeeded the
Rurik dynasty and ruled
Russia from 1613 to 1917, were not descended from Zoe, originating as in-laws, rather than descendants, of the Rurikids. Some claims to Palaiologos inheritance have historically been forwarded by the Italian
Gonzaga family. The Gonzaga are matrilineal descendants of the
Palaeologus-Montferrat family, distant cousins of the last emperors. Their claims reached their height under
Vincenzo II Gonzaga (1594–1627) and
Charles I Gonzaga (1580–1637), both of whom aspired to lead crusades against the Ottomans to restore the Byzantine Empire and claim its throne for themselves. On occasion, claims to the Palaiologos inheritance have been forwarded by nobility and royalty completely genealogically unconnected to the old dynasty. Andreas Palaiologos sold the title of 'Emperor of Constantinople', i. e. Byzantine emperor, to Charles VIII of France in 1494. As the sale was conditional on Charles conquering the Morea and granting it to Andreas, among other conditions, Andreas viewed the sale as having been rendered invalid upon the death of Charles VIII in 1498, and thus claimed the title again from that point onwards. Despite this, the kings of France after Charles VIII –
Louis XII,
Francis I,
Henry II and
Francis II – also continued to use imperial titles and honors. The
effigy of Louis XII on his grave bears an imperial crown, rather than a royal one. When, ultimately fruitless, plans were being drawn up for a crusade in 1517, it was rumored that
Pope Leo X's chosen candidate for the position of Emperor of Constantinople was Francis I of France. Francis I publicly stressed his claim to be the Emperor of Constantinople as late as 1532. Not until
Charles IX in 1566 did the imperial claim come to an eventual end through the rules of
extinctive prescription as a direct result of desuetude, or lack of use. Charles IX wrote that the imperial Byzantine title "is not more eminent than that of a king, which sounds better and sweeter". Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, who were willed the title by Andreas in 1502, never used the title and neither did any succeeding monarch of Spain. The Albanian pretender
Constantine Arianiti claimed the title of 'Despot of Morea' upon Andreas's death in 1502, though it is unclear on what grounds, possibly through a spurious connection to the old Komnenos dynasty, or through his marriage to
Francesca of Montferrat, an illegitimate princess of the House of Palaeologus-Montferrat.
Supposed lines of descent ( 1560–1636), possibly a descendant of
Thomas Palaiologos The probable extinction of the senior branch of the imperial Palaiologos family at some point in the 16th century did little to stop individuals in various parts of Europe from claiming descent from the old imperial dynasty. The name 'Palaiologos' had been widespread even before a branch of the family acceded to the imperial throne, with many unrelated nobles and landowners also bearing it by the time of Constantinople's fall. Byzantine genealogy is also made complicated by the fact that it was common in Byzantium to adopt the family name of your spouse or mother, if that was more prestigious. Many among the Byzantine nobility escaped to Western Europe as their empire crumbled, either before or after the Ottoman conquest of the Morea. Many Byzantine refugees legitimately bore the name Palaiologos, though they were unrelated to the imperial family itself. Because the name could lend whoever bore it prestige (as well as possible monetary support), many refugees fabricated closer links to the imperial dynasty. Many Western rulers were conscious of their failure to prevent Byzantium's fall and welcomed these men at their courts. Given that western Europeans were unaware of the intricacies of Byzantine naming customs, the name Palaiologos was understood in the west to mean the imperial dynasty. The effect of this was an extensive number of Palaiologos lineages in western Europe, whose relations to each other, and the imperial dynasty, are not entirely clear. One of the more plausible'
lineages was the Paleologus family from Pesaro, claiming descent from Thomas Palaiologos. This is attested in Italy, England and the Caribbean from the 16th century to the disappearance of its last known member, Godscall Paleologue, in the late 17th century. The Pesaro Paleologi left no known modern descendants.' (1859–1944), a French diplomat of Romanian descent who claimed imperial Palaiologos ancestry Living families that claim direct imperial Palaiologos descent include the Palaiologoi of the island of
Syros in Greece, which have historically claimed descent from a supposed son of
Andronikos Palaiologos, one of Emperor Manuel II's sons. Given that Andronikos suffered from
elephantiasis and
epilepsy, and that he died at a young age, with no contemporary evidence for any children, it is unlikely that he has descendants.'
The Paleologu of Romania claims to descend from an otherwise unattested son of Theodore II Palaiologos, another son of Manuel II. The Paleologu also live in Malta and France, one of the most famous members of the family being the French diplomat Maurice Paléologue, who in his lifetime repeatedly asserted his imperial descent. The 20th-century pretender Paul Crivez claimed to be the rightful Byzantine emperor through adoption into the French branch of the family. The ancestry of the Paleologu can be traced to Greeks with the name Palaiologos, but not to the imperial family. In the 18th century, several Phanariots (members of prominent Greek families in the Fener quarter of Constantinople) were granted governing positions in the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia (predecessors of Romania) by the Ottomans. The Phanariots sent to Wallachia and Moldavia included people with the last name Palaiologos, ancestors of the Paleologu family.' It was usual among wealthy Phanariots of the time to assume Byzantine surnames and claim descent from the famous noble houses of their Byzantine past, making the authenticity of the descent of these Palaiologoi doubtful.
Forged connections Several supposed Palaiologoi have been outright denounced as
forgers throughout the centuries since the fall of the Byzantine Empire. The late 16th-century theologian
Jacob Palaeologus, originally from
Chios, travelled across Europe claiming to be a grandson of Andreas Palaiologos, though he does not appear to have garnered much acceptance. Jacob's increasingly
heterodox views on Christianity eventually brought him into conflict with the Roman church; he was burnt as a heretic in 1585. A contemporary of Jacob, Panaiotus (also called Panagiotes) Palaeologus, referred to himself as a genuine member of the old imperial family and a "Prince of
Lacedaemonia", though the authorities in Vienna convicted him as a forger.'''''' In 1830, an Irish man by the name
Nicholas Macdonald Sarsfield Cod'd, living in
Wexford, petitioned
George Hamilton-Gordon, the Earl of
Aberdeen, and
Henry John Temple, the
Viscount of Palmerston, to press his "ancestral" claim on the newly created
Kingdom of Greece, after the throne had been offered to and declined by
Leopold I of Belgium. An obscure Irishman claiming the throne of Greece is noteworthy as actual European royalty were offered the title at the time, with many refusing to accept it due to the personal danger presented by becoming king of a new and war-torn country. Nicholas claimed descent not only from the final Palaiologoi but also from
Diarmait Mac Murchada, a medieval King of Ireland. He created large and elaborate genealogies and referred to himself as the "Comte de Sarsfield of the Order of Fidelity Heir and Representative to his Royal Ancestors Constantines, last Reigning Emperors of Greece subdued in Constantinople by the Turks". After his claims were ignored by Hamilton-Gordon and Temple, Nicholas sent a letter to
William IV, the King of the United Kingdom, and might have sent letters to
Charles X, the King of France,
Nicholas I, the Emperor of Russia,
Frederick William III, the King of Prussia, and
Gregory XVI, the Pope. None of them ever acknowledged his claims. A wealthy 19th century Greek merchant by the name
Demetrius Rhodocanakis, originally from
Syros but living in London, styled himself as "His Imperial Highness the Prince Rhodocanakis" and actively sought support for his family's claim to not only be the legitimate grand masters of the
Constantinian Order of Saint George, a Catholic knightly order with invented Byzantine connections, but also to be the rightful Byzantine emperors, through descent from the Paleologus family of Pesaro. Rhodocanakis published several fabricated, but extensive, genealogies to assert his descent and though his claims were eventually debunked by the French scholar
Emile Legrand, Rhodocanakis had at that point already received recognition from several important parties, such as the
Vatican and the
British Foreign Office. Though there had been a Greek delegation sent to Italy and England after the Greek War of Independence, in search for supposed heirs of the Byzantine emperors, they found no living heirs of their ancient emperors. The failure of this delegation to find living Palaiologoi did not stop further claimants from emerging in England. Upon the deposition of the first King of Greece,
Otto, in 1862, a man by the name
Theodore Palaeologo, probably from Malta but living in England, attempted to press his claim to the Greek throne. Theodore died in 1912, aged 89, and was probably related to the later pretender "Princess"
Eugenie Paleologue, born in 1849 and dead in 1934 and described by her tombstone as a "descendant of the Grecian Emperors of Byzantium".
Peter Mills, an Englishman from
Newport on the
Isle of Wight, was the last in the long line of supposed Palaiologoi in England claiming imperial descent. He styled himself as "His Imperial Majesty Petros I, Despot and Autokrator of the Romans, The Prince Palaeologus" and claiming to be the Grand Master of the Constantinian Order of Saint George and the "Duke of the Morea". Mills often walked around the streets of Newport "with long flowing white hair, sandals but no socks and some sort of order or military award around his neck". When he died in 1988, his claim to the imperial throne was taken up by his second wife and widow who then assumed the title "Her Imperial Highness Patricia Palaeologina, Empress of the Romans". Although several newspapers, such as the
Isle of Wight County Press,
The Daily Telegraph and
The Times, printed obituaries of Mills, identifying him as "His Imperial Highness Petros I Palaeologos", his own son Nicholas denounced the idea that their family were of imperial descent, calling his father's claims a "complete and utter sham" and hoped that "the ghost of Prince Palaeologus might now be buried once and for all". An Italian physician named
Pietro Paleologo Mastrogiovanni claimed descent from
Thomas Palaiologos, the younger brother of
Constantine XI Palaiologos, the last Byzantine emperor, alleging in a 1981 interview that from Thomas "the line of ancestors leads from father to firstborn son directly to me, over 16 generations". Mastrogiovanni's supposed branch of the Palaiologos dynasty, the "Mastrogiovanni", claims descent from a supposed son of Thomas called Rogerio or Ruggerio, supposedly born around 1430. This however, is likely an impossibility since Thomas' marriage took place the same year, and his eldest verified child,
Helena, was born in 1431. This Rogerio was supposedly sent as a hostage to
Alfonso the Magnanimous of Aragon and Naples. Supposedly, he was responsible for erecting the
Spirito Santo church, which still stands, in
Casalsottano, a hamlet of the Italian
comune San Mauro Cilento. Rogerio was supposedly survived by his two children John (Giovanni) and Angela, with John allegedly being granted the feudal holdings of
Perito and
Ostigliano in
Salerno. The name "Mastrogiovanni" was said to have originated from John's descendants adopting it in his honor. This supposed family history mainly derives from oral tradition, with few documents supporting it. None of the documents have been authenticated and there are several issues with the overall reconstruction of events and descent. Modern researchers overwhelmingly dismiss the existence of Rogerio as fantasy. Among the most damning evidence is Rogerio's clearly Italian (rather than Greek) first name, the unlikelihood of a potential imperial heir being kept as hostage in Italy and that there are no mentions of him in Byzantine records. The contemporary Byzantine historian
George Sphrantzes, who described the life of Thomas Palaiologos in detail, wrote on the birth of Thomas' son
Andreas Palaiologos on 17 January 1453 that the boy was "a continuator and heir" of the Palaiologan lineage, a phrase which makes little sense if Andreas was not Thomas' first-born son. Giovanni Angelo, self-styled as "Giovanni XIII Paleologo" or "Giovanni Angelo XIII Paleologo Mastrogiovanni". Giovanni Angelo heads the "Union of Byzantine Aristocracy", a group which also includes other Byzantine forgers, such as Maria Eugenia Láscaris, a granddaughter of the Spanish Byzantine forger-pretender
Eugenio Lascorz.
Descendants of other dynasties In addition to the Palaiologoi, there were also living descendants of other past imperial families after 1453, such as the Komnenoi,
Laskarids and
Kantakouzenoi. After the fall of Constantinople, the Ottoman government began a campaign of either outright eliminating prominent potential claimants (for instance, there was a mass execution of members of the Kantakouzenos family in Constantinople in 1477), or carefully watching their activities. Some prominent members of the nobility successfully managed to escape the grasp of the Ottomans however, fleeing to western Europe. The existence of genuine male-line descendants of any Byzantine emperor today is considered doubtful.
Angelos dynasty family, which claimed descent from the
Angelos dynasty The
Angelos dynasty ruled the Byzantine Empire 1185–1204. In 1197,
Irene Angelina, a daughter of Emperor
Isaac II Angelos, married
Philip of Swabia,
King of the Romans, through which she is ancestral to many of the later royalty and nobility in Western Europe. Emperor
Alexios III Angelos was ancestral to both the Laskaris and Palaiologos dynasties through his daughters. As the Angeloi were matrilineal descendants of
Alexios I Komnenos, these lines of descent are also descended from the Komnenoi. Alexios III's death in 1211 extinguished the male line of the imperial Angelos dynasty. Later male-line Angeloi descended from
John Doukas, uncle of Isaac II and Alexios III. John's descendants, who often preferred to use the name 'Komnenos Doukas' rather than 'Angelos', ruled
Epirus and
Thessaly until the 14th century. Among their last known recorded descendants were
Michael Angelović ( 1451–73), a Serbian magnate, and
Mahmud Pasha Angelović (1420–1474), who served as the
Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire under Mehmed II 1456–1466 and 1472–1474. The most public non-Palaiologos claimants to Byzantine inheritance and legacy in the centuries following 1453 were the
Angelo Flavio Comneno family, which claimed descent from the Angelos dynasty. Their claims to descend from the Angeloi was accepted in Western Europe without much dispute, given that there were already several known descendants of Byzantine nobility across the continent, legitimate or not. Because they had prominent familial connections and through some means managed to convince the popes of the legitimacy of their descent, they reached a position more or less unique among the various Byzantine claimants. Any imperial ancestry can't be proven for these later Angeloi, though it is possible that they descended either directly or collaterally from less well known children or cousins of the Angeloi emperors. Their earliest certain ancestor was the Albanian Andres Engjëlli (hellenized as "Andreas Angelos"), alive in the 1480s, who later generations claimed held the titles "Prince of Macedonia" and "Duke of
Drivasto". In 1545, the brothers
Andrea and Paolo of the Angelo Flavio Comneno family were officially acknowledged as descendants of the Angeloi emperors by Pope
Paul III. The two brothers were also guaranteed the right to inherit territory in the former Byzantine Empire, should such territory be recovered from the Ottomans. The Angelo Flavio Comneno were the founders and first heads of Imperial Constantinian Order of Saint George, an order they claimed to have been founded by Constantine the Great in the 4th century. The claims that this order represented an ancient imperial institution and something which many emperors had served as Grand Masters for is fantasy; there are no Byzantine accounts of such an institution ever existing. Furthermore, chivalric orders, especially in a western sense, were completely unknown in the Byzantine world. The Angelo Flavio Comneno family is generally regarded to have gone extinct in the male line with the death of
Giovanni Andrea II Angeli in 1703, though some people claiming descent are attested thereafter.
Gian Antonio Lazier (or "Johannes Antonius Angelus Flavius Comnenus Lascaris Palaeologus"), who died in Vienna in 1738, that claimed descent not only from the Angeloi but also from Theodore II Palaiologos. Lazier referred to himself as "
Princeps de genere Imperatorum Orientis" and claimed connection with the Constantinian Order. Among later "Byzantine pretenders", Lazier was not alone in making claims to the Constantinian order, or other invented chivalric orders. Many later forgers of Byzantine claims purported that they were either part of the Constantinian Order, or its legitimate Grand Master. Claims of male-line descent from the Angelos dynasty continue to this day. The Angelo-Comneno family in Italy, established by the forger
Mario Bernardo Pierangeli, claim in their self-published genealogy to descend from
John Doukas, a son of
Michael II Komnenos Doukas, Despot of Epirus, whose father
Michael I was a cousin of emperors Isaac II Angelos and Alexios III Angelos and claim the title "Prince of Thessaly and Epirus".
Kantakouzenos dynasty ,
Prince of Wallachia 1678–1688 The
Kantakouzenos dynasty briefly ruled the Byzantine Empire 1347–1357, in opposition to the Palaiologos dynasty, which they nearly succeeded in supplanting. The only two emperors of the family were
John VI Kantakouzenos () and his son
Matthew Kantakouzenos (). The family survived their deposition in favor of the Palaiologoi. Through Matthew's son
Demetrios Kantakouzenos ( 1343–1384), the two Kantakouzenos emperors left numerous descendants. In 1453–1454, one of these descendants,
Manuel Kantakouzenos, led a revolt against Demetrios and Thomas Palaiologos, hoping to claim the Despotate of the Morea for himself. The Paleologu family in Romania is not the only Romanian aristocratic family descending from phanariots who claim to be imperial descendants. Also sent to Romania in the time following the Ottoman conquest of the country were Greek aristocrats with the last name Kantakouzenos, who purported to be descendants of John VI Kantakouzenos. These Kantakounzenoi, who periodically achieved high positions in Romania, survive to this day as the
Cantacuzino family. Scholars are divided on the veracity of their descent.
Steven Runciman stated in 1985 that they were "perhaps the only family whose claim to be in the direct line from Byzantine Emperors is authentic", but
Donald Nicol noted in 1968 that "Patriotic Rumanian historians have indeed labored to show that ... of all the Byzantine imperial families that of the Kantakouzenos is the only one which can truthfully be said to have survived to this day; but the line of succession after the middle of the fifteenth century is, to say the least, uncertain."
Komnenos dynasty The
Komnenos dynasty ruled the Byzantine Empire 1081–1185. The family survived beyond its deposition in 1185, when Emperor
Andronikos I Komnenos was deposed and killed in favor of Isaac II Angelos. The dynasty's turbulent fall from power left only two survivors:
Alexios and
David, grandsons of Andronikos I. The boys were taken to
Georgia for their safety, but returned in the time around the chaos of the
Fourth Crusade, when they conquered the eastern Black Sea provinces of the Byzantine Empire and founded the
Empire of Trebizond in 1204, one of the Byzantine successor states that claimed to be the rightful government-in-exile during the time of the
Latin Empire, which had been founded by the crusaders. The descendants of Alexios, Trebizond's first emperor, would rule the small empire until it was conquered by the Ottomans in 1461, the last Byzantine territory to fall. They often used the last name 'Megas Komnenos' ("Grand Komnenos"). The last emperor of Trebizond,
David Megas Komnenos, was captured in 1461 and executed alongside most of his family at Constantinople by Mehmed II on 1 November 1463. The last member of the Komnenos dynasty is typically considered to have been
John Komnenos Molyvdos (1657–1719), a distinguished Greek scholar and physician in the Ottoman Empire, who later in life became a monk and Eastern Orthodox
metropolitan bishop of
Side and
Dristra. Per a 1695 document, John was the great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Emperor
Basil Megas Komnenos of Trebizond (). Several princesses of Trebizond married into the ruling family of the
Aq Qoyunlu and other Turkoman tribes, but the inadequate sources makes tracing most of their lines of descent impossible. Some lineages are documented; for instance,
Theodora Megale Komnene, a daughter of Emperor
John IV Megas Komnenos (), was an ancestor of the
Safavid Shahs of Iran, through her marriage to
Uzun Hasan of the Aq Qoyunlu. The only probable link between the emperors of Trebizond and nobility of Europe, given the extinction of several lines of Georgian royals with Komnenoi ancestry, is the possible marriage of the Georgian noble
Mamia Gurieli to a daughter of Emperor
Alexios IV Megas Komnenos (). This marriage is uncertain, but if the interpretation of the sources is correct, the numerous families of the Russian and Georgian aristocracy who can trace descent from Mamia's son
Kakhaber II Gurieli are also descendants of the Komnenoi of Trebizond.
Demetrio Stefanopoli (1749–1821), a French military officer of Greek descent from
Corsica, claimed to be a descendant of the Megas Komnenos emperors of the
Empire of Trebizond (who in turn were descendants of the Komnenos dynasty of Byzantium). He claimed to be a thirteenth-generation descendant of David Megas Komnenos through an otherwise unattested son called Nikephoros Komnenos. Even if Nikephoros had been a real son of David, David's sons are recorded as having been executed alongside him in 1463. Demetrio's claim to descend from the Komnenoi was officially recognized by King
Louis XVI of France in 1782, whereafter Demetrio assumed the full name
Démètre Stephanopoli de Comnène and a coat of arms containing the double-headed eagle of Byzantium. Though their claim of descent cannot be confidently verified, Demetrio does not appear to have made it up out of thin air himself. According to later writers, that the Stefanopoli family descended from the Komnenoi was a well-established local tradition within the
Greek community of Corsica. Demetrio's sister,
Panoria Stefanopoli, aka
Panoria Comnène (mother of
Laure Junot, Duchess of Abrantès, wife of French
Napoleonic General
Jean-Andoche Junot), was also convinced of their Komnenoi descent and would later, after
Napoleon's rise to power as
Emperor of the French, attempt to fabricate a link between the
Bonaparte family and the Byzantine Empire.
Laskaris dynasty family, matrilineal descendants of the
Laskaris dynasty|left The
Laskaris dynasty ruled the
Empire of Nicaea 1204–1261, the Byzantine government-in-exile during the time Constantinople was ruled by the Latin Empire. Although the imperial branch of the Laskaris family was gruesomely deposed by
Michael VIII Palaiologos, founder of the Palaiologos dynasty, with the blinding and imprisonment of the last Laskaris emperor,
John IV Laskaris, members of the extended Laskaris family not part of the immediate former imperial family continued to be prominent in the imperial court during the Palaiologos dynasty and many emigrated to the west after the Fall of Constantinople, such as the famous scholar and
grammarian
Constantine Lascaris (1434–1501) who worked for
Francesco Sforza,
Duke of Milan. Descendants of the Laskaris emperors survived in the female line. Upon usurping the throne, Michael VIII Palaiologos married off John IV's sisters, daughters of
Theodore II Laskaris, to foreigners to ensure that their descendants would not be able to claim the Byzantine throne. The most prominent western branch of the Laskaris descendants were the house of
Ventimiglia-Lascaris, extinct in 1838, founded through the marriage of
Eudoxia Laskarina, one of Theodore II's daughters, and Count
Guglielmo Pietro I of Ventimiglia and Tenda. Eudoxia and Pietro had five children, but she was eventually refused by him and travelled to the court of
James I of Aragon and later a
Dominican convent in
Zaragoza, where she lived for the rest of her life. One of her most prominent descendants was
Giovanni Paolo Lascaris,
Grand Master of the
Knights of Malta 1636–1657. As the Laskaris dynasty was the penultimate dynasty of the Byzantine Empire, some later forgers fabricated links to that family, rather than to the Palaiologoi. Among the most prominent "Laskaris" forgers were the Spanish lawyer
Eugenio Lascorz y Labastida (1886–1962) and the Italian
eccentric Marziano Lavarello (1921–1992). Lascorz was a lawyer who claimed his surname to be a corruption of "Laskaris" and claimed to be the rightful Emperor of Constantinople as
Eugene II Lascaris Comnenus. To support his claims, he produced a detailed fabricated genealogy, which altered his own familial history, changing the names and life stories of even his immediate relatives. He also claimed to be the head of the Constantinian Order, as well as some invented chivalric orders of his own. Lascorz's descendants maintain his claims to this day. Lavarello claimed to be the rightful emperor of both Constantinople and
Trebizond, as well as the rightful
king of Serbia, among other titles and honors. Lavarello worked on his genealogy throughout his life, and eventually even began to claim descent from the Greek god
Zeus. Both Lascorz and Lavarello, as well as other pretenders, obtained legal recognition of their claims in Italian courts, which typically did not investigate their claims and lacked the competence and authority to proclaim someone as a Byzantine descendant. Lavarello famously feuded with the comedian and actor
Totò, who also claimed Byzantine descent, mostly to mock the meaninglessness of doing so. == See also ==