Qualla: Lordship of Chios https://qualla.com/lordship-of-chios en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 27 Jul 2026 10:40:38 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Lordship of Chios https://qualla.com/lordship-of-chios Lordship of Chios: Introduction https://qualla.com/lordship-of-chios/ In 1304 a Genoese noble named Benedetto Zaccaria took a Byzantine island and told its rightful owner he had done it for the owner's own good. Benedetto, who already controlled the alum-rich town of Phocaea on the Anatolian coast, seized Chios and then explained to the court in Constantinople that he had acted only to keep the island out of the hands of Turkish pirates. The Byzantine emperor, Andronikos II Palaiologos, had no fleet capable of throwing him off and so did the only thing he could: he accepted the seizure and dressed it up as a grant, leasing Chios to the man who had already taken it. So began the Lordship of Chios, twenty-five years in which one ambitious family ran an Aegean island as if it were their own kingdom.

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/f/d/lordship-of-chios-wp/swfd-lordship-of-chios-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Lordship of Chios: A Family Business https://qualla.com/lordship-of-chios/ The Zaccaria treated Chios as an inheritance. When Benedetto I died in 1307, the island passed to his son, Paleologo Zaccaria — named for his mother's imperial family — and when Paleologo died in 1314, it went to Martino and Benedetto II, cousins of Paleologo who had been co-heir...

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/f/d/lordship-of-chios-wp/swfd-lordship-of-chios-a-family-business.mp3 0:06 2 full Lordship of Chios: The King of Asia Minor https://qualla.com/lordship-of-chios/ Of all the Zaccaria, Martino reached highest. With a small army and fleet he built Chios into the core of a little maritime realm that gathered in other islands off the Anatolian shore, including Samos and Kos. He won real victories against the Turkish pirates who plagued these w...

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/f/d/lordship-of-chios-wp/swfd-lordship-of-chios-the-king-of-asia-minor.mp3 0:06 3 full Lordship of Chios: Overreach https://qualla.com/lordship-of-chios/ Martino's hold tightened into something harder. He had leaned increasingly toward the Latin and Papal powers and away from Byzantium, and around 1325 he shoved his co-lord Benedetto II aside to rule Chios alone. For a while it did not matter, because the aging Andronikos II had n...

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/f/d/lordship-of-chios-wp/swfd-lordship-of-chios-overreach.mp3 0:06 4 full Lordship of Chios: The Greeks Choose https://qualla.com/lordship-of-chios/ What undid the lordship in the end was not an imperial decree but the will of the people Martino ruled. A leading Chian noble named Leo Kalothetos traveled to the new emperor and his chief minister, John Kantakouzenos, and proposed on behalf of the island's Greeks that Byzantium ...

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/f/d/lordship-of-chios-wp/swfd-lordship-of-chios-the-greeks-choose.mp3 0:06 5 full Lordship of Chios: The Genoese Return https://qualla.com/lordship-of-chios/ Byzantine rule, restored at the islanders' own request, did not last long. In 1346, with the empire torn by a civil war, another Genoese, Simone Vignoso, seized the island again. This time the conquerors organized themselves not as a noble dynasty but as a corporation: the Maona ...

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/f/d/lordship-of-chios-wp/swfd-lordship-of-chios-the-genoese-return.mp3 0:06 6 full