Giovanni II Orsini

. Giovanni II Orsini (since 1323 also John Komnenos Dukas; medium Greek Ιωάννης Κομνηνός Δούκας Ioannes Komnenos Doukas ) (* 1300, † 1335 ) was from 1323 to 1324 Palatine of Cephalonia and from 1323 to his death in 1335, Despot of Epirus .

Life

Giovanni II was the son of Count Giovanni I Orsini of Kephalonia and Maria Angelina Komnenos Dukas, who came from the Epirotian princely house. He was born around 1300. His older brother Nikola Orsini had usurped power in Epirus in 1318 by murdering Thomas Angelos Komnenos Dukas , his maternal uncle. In 1323 Giovanni II eliminated his older brother in the same way and took control of Epirus and the Ionian Islands .

From then on, the new prince called himself Johannes, as was customary with the Greeks, and converted to the Orthodox Church. He had to pay dearly for recognition of his rule, which he had obtained by force, from his Angevin liege lord Philip of Taranto . In 1324 Philip ceded the islands of Kephalonia , Ithaka and Zakynthos and enfeoffed his younger brother Johann von Gravina , who was also Prince of Achaia . Johann took possession of the islands personally when he stopped there on his way to a campaign in the Peloponnese .

To counter the pressure of the Angevinen, John allied himself with the Byzantines. He recognized the sovereignty of Emperor Andronikos III, who came to sole rule in 1328 . and married Anna, the daughter of the protovestarian Andronikos Palaiologos, who was provincial governor in northern Epirus. For this he received the title of despot from the emperor and Andronikos even agreed to reunite Ioannina and the surrounding area with the despotate, not least because the citizens of the city had asked for it. John's close association with the emperor almost inevitably triggered a backlash on the part of the Neapolitans, who in 1331 sent an army under the command of Walter von Brienne . This succeeded in taking Vonitsa and occupying the island of Leukas . Then Walter von Brienne allied himself with some Albanian tribal leaders, together they besieged Arta and forced Johannes to become a vassal of the Angevines again. The foreign troops then evacuated Epirus, except for Vonitsa and Leukas, who remained in the hands of the Neapolitans.

When Stephan Gabrielopulos , the Greek ruler of western Thessaly , died in 1332 , John took advantage of the power vacuum and occupied large parts of its territory, including the Trikala residence . Most of it he soon had to cede back to Byzantium when Andronikos III. came to Thessaly in the autumn of the same year at the head of his troops.

In 1335 Johannes died unexpectedly, rumors accused his wife Anna of having poisoned him. The principality of Epirus inherited John's immature son, Nikephorus II.

progeny

Giovanni II had two children with his wife Anna Palaiologina :

• the son of Nikephorus II Orsini , despot of Epirus
• the daughter Thomais, married to Simeon Uroš , half-brother of the Serbian Tsar Stefan Dušan

literature

• William Miller : The Latins in the Levant. A history of Frankish Greece (1204-1566). John Murray, London 1908, pp. 248-253 .
• John VA Fine: The late medieval Balkans. A critical survey from the late twelfth century to the Ottoman conques. 1st paperback edition. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor MI 1994, ISBN 0-472-08260-4 .

predecessor	Office	successor
Nikola Orsini	Despot of Epirus 1323-1335	Nikephorus II. Dukas
Nikola Orsini	Count Palatine of Kephalonia and Zakynthos 1323–1325	John of Durazzo