1475, at the age of 22, Andreas had begun offering to sell his claims to the imperial thrones of both Constantinople and Trebizond (the Empire of Trebizond being a Byzantine successor state which lasted until 1461), writing letters to several rulers, including the King of Naples (Ferdinand I) and possibly the Duke of Milan (Galeazzo Maria Sforza) and the Duke of Burgundy (Charles). By writing to many different rulers, Andreas was probably looking for the highest bidder. Andreas's younger brother Manuel also fell into financial hardship but had no titles to sell as he was second-in-line. Instead, Manuel left Rome to travel around Europe, seeking to enter the service of a ruler in some military capacity. Receiving no satisfactory offers, Manuel surprised everyone in Rome by traveling to Constantinople in the spring of 1476 and presenting himself before Sultan Mehmed II, who graciously received him and provided him with a generous pension for the rest of his life. The origin of the financial hardship experienced by Andreas and Manuel likely lies with reductions to the pension paid to them by the papacy. The amount paid initially to their father Thomas had been 300 ducats a month, with an additional 200 per month from the cardinals. Thomas's courtier George Sphrantzes complained that it was barely enough since Thomas not only had to support himself, but also his household. Although Andreas and Manuel were granted the same pension at first, the money was to be shared between them, and the cardinals stopped paying extra money, meaning that the brothers in effect received only 150 ducats each per month, instead of the 500 that had been paid to their father. The situation quickly grew even worse after Bessarion's death. For the first three months of 1473, the two brothers only received 690 ducats (instead of the correct 900). When Manuel left Rome in 1474, Pope Sixtus IV used Manuel's absence as an excuse to cut the full pension in half, paying Andreas 150 ducats a month rather than 300. This arrangement continued even during Manuel's brief return to the city in 1475. From the late 1470s onwards, the pension was cut back frequently. Though Andreas received 150 ducats in June 1478, he only received 104 in November and for several months after that on account of the "many wars" faced by the papacy. In 1488 and 1489, Andreas was paid 100 ducats each