Vassallo-Paleologo

The Vassallo-Paleologo are known from the genealogy of a Sicilian and Maltese noble family rather than from Byzantine records. By its account Riccardo Vassallo, who lived from about 1278 to 1329 and advised the emperors Andronikos II and Michael IX, was made a count palatine in 1320 and married Anna Zaccaria, of the Genoese lords of Chios.

His son Giovanni, who lived from about 1312 to 1395, married Francesca Sanudo of the dukes of Naxos. The family tradition has their descendants settle in Sicily in 1436 and on Malta in 1622, still bearing the comital title.