Martino Zaccaria

Martino Zaccaria was the Genoese lord of Chios from 1314 to 1329 and a scourge of Turkish corsairs in the Aegean. In 1319 he brought seven ships to a Hospitaller fleet that crushed an Aydinid fleet, and Gregoras called him the terror of the Turks of Asia Minor.

The titular Latin emperor Philip II gave him the mostly symbolic title ‘King and Despot of Asia Minor’ in 1325, and he held Achaean baronies too. In 1329 Andronikos III attacked Chios with 105 ships; Martino held the citadel with 800 men until his brother yielded a fort, then remained prisoner in Constantinople until 1337.

He later became Genoese envoy to the Holy See and in 1343 commanded the papal galleys in the crusade that stormed Smyrna, where Turks killed him on 17 January 1345 during mass in the old cathedral.