
(image from the Magi
Chapel of
Palazzo Medici-Ricardi,
Florence) |
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John VIII
Palaiologos (born 18 December 1392) was the eldest son of
Emperor
Manuel II
Palaiologos and the Serbian princess
Helena
Dragaš. As a child, while his father journeyed in
1400-1403 to the royal courts of Western Europe during the great
Ottoman blockade of Constantinople, John VIII was left in
Methone in the Peloponnese. Crowned co-emperor in 1421 he
reigned as a sole ruler from
1425
until his death in 1448 when his brother Constantine XI
succeeded him on the throne. John VIII faced mounting military
pressure from the Ottoman Turks who under Sultan Murad II (1421-1451)
grew to become again a formidable power in the eastern
Mediterranean. John VIII witnessed the Ottoman siege of
Constantinople in 1422, the fall of Thessalonica to the Ottomans
in 1430 and the debacle at Varna in 1444. Before the Council of
Ferrara-Florence, John VIII had already journeyed once to the
West in 1423-24, where he hoped to solicit military help from
Venice and Hungary. For him the Union was a clever diplomatic
move which he hoped would bring about massive Western assistance
in the form of a crusade against the Ottomans. Thrice married,
John VIII was a well educated man, a patron of court poets, and
a masterful horseman who left memorable impressions among
Renaissance artists in Italy.
D.A.
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