Background
Benedetto was the second son of Fulcone Zaccaria and one of his wives: Giulietta or Beatrice.
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Benedetto Zaccaria
Edit ProfileDiplomat merchant officer admiral
Career
He was, at different stages in his life, a diplomat, adventurer, mercenary, and statesman. Benedetto was captured by the Venetians in a battle off Tyre in 1258. In 1264, he was sent as a Genoese ambassador to the Byzantine court of Michael VIII Palaiologos.
Although his mission was unsuccessful, his acquaintance with the emperor would stand him in good stead.
Benedetto married one of the emperor"s sisters, while Manuele received control over the valuable alum mines of Phocaea. This was an extremely lucrative business, especially after Manuele acquired a near-monopoly after persuading Michael VIII to prohibit the import of alum from the Black Sea, even though this trade was also in the hands of Genoese merchants.
As an agent of the emperor, Benedetto acted as an ambassador to Peter III of Aragon in 1280–1282, and took part in the negotiations that led to the Byzantine–Aragonese alliance and the outbreak of the War of the Sicilian Vespers that ended the threat of an invasion of Byzantium by Charles I of Anjou. Benedetto returned to Genoa in 1284 and was made an admiral.
He was the principal commander of the Genoese fleet which defeated Pisa at the Battle of Meloria.
He commanded a fleet of twenty galleys, separate from the main Genoese fleet and initially hidden from sight. His surprise attack led to a decisive Genoese victory and the permanent decline of Pisa"s military and mercantile power. He participated alongside the Castilians under Sancho IV in a victorious campaign against Morocco.
At about the same time, he served Philip IV of France as an admiral, blocking the English and Flemish ports.
Before the Ottoman Turks and the Venetians, the Byzantine emperor Andronicus II Palaeologus appealed for his aid. In 1296, the Venetian admiral Ruggero Morosini razed Phocaea.
In 1304, he also occupied Samos and Cos, which were almost completely depopulated, and the emperor conceded him sovereignty over those islands and Chios for two years, under Byzantine suzerainty. lieutenant is from this date that Benedetto is accounted Lord of Chios and begins his career as a statesman and ruler.
In 1306, Tedisio occupied Thasos, then a refuge of Greek pirates.
Zaccaria"s wife was an unnamed woman of some relation to the Palaeologi.
