The Zaccaria family is an ancient and noble Genoese House that had great importance in the development and consolidation of the Republic of Genoa in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and whose only surviving branch (Zaccaria de Damalà) produced the last ruling dynasty of the Principality of Achaea.
The Zaccaria were characterized by, according to scholarly handwritten documents of the time, having broad intelligence and their effective way of maintaining political power through manipulation.
History
editThe Zaccaria family, originally named Zaccaria di Castro, was a very prominent family in the Republic of Genoa, which following the Treaty of Nymphaeum of 1261, were granted by Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos important trading rights in the Empire of Nicaea, as a reward for the help received in the recovery of the Byzantine Empire, and, more generally, in an anti-Venetian function.
In this context, the Zaccaria assumed the lordship of Phocaea in 1275, first with Manuele then with his son Tedisio and, then, with Benedetto I Zaccaria. Phocaea was an important commercial port, with its hinterland rich in alum, mineral at the time used for the tanning of leathers and fabrics.[1]
In Genoa, they established intense relationships with the most important families of the aristocracy through marriages:
- Orietta Zaccaria married Reinaldo Spinola
- Velocchia Zaccaria married Nicoloso Doria
- Palaeologus Zaccaria married Giacomina Spinola
- Argentina Zaccaria married Paolino Doria
- Eliana Zaccaria married Andreolo Cattaneo della Volta
The Zacharias controlled all the alum trade: from extraction to transport to its transformation and sale mainly in Flanders.
After alternating events that saw the Zaccarias lose, at the hands of the Venetians, and reconquer Phocaea and the island of Chios, they also took possession of the island of Samos. Benedict II, known as the Palaeologus, son of Benedetto Zaccaria, on his death in 1307, assumed the title of Lord of Phocaea and Chios.[2]
He was succeeded in the title by his two sons, Martino Zaccaria, who would achieve titular recognizion as King and Despot of Asia Minor from titular Latin Emperor Phillip III, and Benedetto III, a lordship that was reconfirmed with the dominion of Samo, Tenedo, Marmora, Mytilene.
After various events, he married in 1320 with Jacqueline de la Roche, the last heir of the Dukes of Athens, receiving as a dowry the baronies of Veligosti in Messenia and Damala in Argolide, he died in İzmir in 1345. His son Centurione I Zaccaria inherited the title of Baron of Damala. Centurione was married to the daughter of Andronikos Asen, the son of Ivan Asen III of Bulgaria and Irena Palaeologus, daughter of Michael VIII Palaiologos. Centurione assumed the office of Balio of Morea which he kept until his death in 1382.[3][4]
The Zaccaria de Chios and Zaccaria de Damala branches in Greece, would end up in time outranking and outshining the main Genoese branch of the Zaccaria family through their own merits and exploits, and would later become the prominent Damalas noble family in Chios and in the modern Kingdom of Greece
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ "STORIA DELL". www.giustiniani.info. Retrieved 2020-08-08.
- ^ Musarra, Antonio. Genova e il mare nel Medioevo (in Italian). Società editrice il Mulino.
- ^ Scorza, Angelo. Famiglie nobili genovesi (in Italian). Frilli.
- ^ Petti Balbi, Giovanna. Simon Boccanegra e la Genova del'300 (in Italian). Marietti.