point in the pontificate of Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503), crushed as his house collapsed on top of him. His claims were inherited by his eldest son, Carlo III Tocco. Background The Despotate of Epirus was one of the Byzantine successor states founded in 1204/1205 in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade, which saw the collapse of the Byzantine Empire and the creation of the Latin Empire by the crusaders in its place. The despotate had originally been ruled by the Byzantine Komnenos Doukas family, a branch of the Angelos dynasty which had ruled Byzantium from 1185 to 1204, but fell into the hands of the Italian Orsini family in 1318 through inheritance and scheming, before the despotate was conquered and destroyed by the Serbian Empire in the 1340s. Though various local rulers would claim the title of 'despot' thereafter, the despotate was not restored to something close to its original form until the early 15th century, when the Italian noble Carlo I Tocco worked to expand his holdings through conquest. Carlo I was the son of Leonardo I Tocco, who had been granted the title of Count Palatine of Cephalonia and Zakynthos by the Kingdom of Naples. Carlo I's uncle, Esau de' Buondelmonti, who ruled the town Ioannina as despot, died in 1411. The town was then held by his wife, Jevdokija Balšić, but on account of her unpopularity she was deposed by the locals, who appealed to Carlo I to become their ruler instead. Only two months after Esau's death, Carlo I made a triumphal entry into Ioannina. He almost immediately assumed the title of despot, though the locals insisted that Carlo seek recognition of that title from the Byzantine emperor. After having received Carlo I's brother Leonardo II Tocco as an emissary, Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos (1391–1425) formally recognized Carlo I as a despot in 1415. Carlo I saw his title of despot as granting him a claim on the lands formerly ruled by the Komnenos Doukas and Orsini dynasties of the Despotate of Epirus. In 1416, he captured Arta, the old capital of the despotate. Leonardo III Tocco was the eldest son and heir of Carlo II Tocco, the nephew and successor of Carlo I. Leonardo's mother was Raimondina Ventimiglia, a daughter of the Italian baron Giovanni Ventimiglia. Biography Accession and early reign Leonardo was still underage when his father died on 30 September 1448. Without a