Catherine Zaccaria
1410 – 1462 · Generation XL
Catherine Zaccaria was the wife of Thomas Palaiologos, Despot of the Morea until it fell to the Ottomans, and through her daughter Zoe the great-grandmother of Ivan the Terrible, the first crowned tsar of Russia. She was the daughter of Centurione II Zaccaria, the last Prince of Achaea, and of a Byzantine lady of the Asen-Palaiologos and Tzamblakon families. She was betrothed to Thomas in September 1429 and married him at Mystras in January 1430.
A palace at Kalavryta is still known locally as the palace of Palaiologina, and tradition says her brother-in-law Constantine, the future last emperor, gave it to her as a gift. Her mother’s brother-in-law, Kydonides Tzamblakon, was close to Thomas, and in 1459 he pressed him into war against his brother Demetrios.
When the Ottomans conquered the Morea in 1460, Catherine fled with her husband and children to Venetian Corfu, where the historian George Sphrantzes, whose wife was her second cousin, served her household for a time. She died on Corfu on 26 August 1462 and was laid to rest in the monastery of Saints Jason and Sosipatros. The scholar George Hermonymos wrote her epitaph out of admiration, he said, not duty, praising her as “a divine empress” and “the most modest and bravest of women”.
She and Thomas had four children. Their sons were Andreas and Manuel. Their daughter Helena married Lazar Branković of Serbia, and Zoe, known in Russia as Sophia, married Ivan III, Grand Prince of Moscow.
Partners
- Married Thomas Palaiologos (1409 – 1465) in 1430 — 3 children together
Children
- Andreas Palaiologos (1453 – 1502)
- Sophia Palaiologina (1449 – 1503)
- Helena Palaiologina (1431 – 1473)
Life
- 1410 — Born
- 1430 — Married Thomas
- 1462 — Died
Sources
- Catherine Zaccaria · Wikipedia
- Thomas Palaiologos · Wikipedia