Zechariah

The Zaccaria were a noble Genoese family whose fortune grew out of the eastward expansion of Genoa. After the Treaty of Nymphaeum in 1261 the Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos granted them trading privileges, and from 1275 they held the port of Phocaea, whose alum mines gave them a near monopoly of the alum sold in Flanders; they also ruled the islands of Chios and Samos. Benedetto Zaccaria served as admiral of Genoa, France and Castile, and his grandson Martino married Jacqueline de la Roche, heiress of the dukes of Athens, in 1311, receiving the Moreot baronies of Veligosti and Damala as her dowry; the titular Latin emperor named him king and despot of Asia Minor, and he died at Smyrna in 1345.

Martino's son Centurione I became bailiff of the Principality of Achaea in 1364. His grandson Centurione II inherited the barony of Chalandritsa in 1401 and in 1404 bought from Ladislaus of Naples the title of Prince of Achaea, becoming the last Latin ruler of the Morea outside Byzantine suzerainty. On his death in 1432 his daughter Catherine married Thomas Palaiologos at Mystras in 1430, carrying the family claims into the Byzantine imperial house, while a son, John Asen, briefly revived the principality in 1453.