 Venice had first become interested in hiring "stratioti" after witnessing the prowess of Greek and Albanian soldiers in the First Ottoman–Venetian War of 1463–1479.The Venetian Palaiologoi were not related to the imperial family, but they might have been distant cousins.One of the earliest references to Palaiologoi in Venice is a 1479 Senate decision concerning Theodore Palaiologos, who had recently proven himself in a campaign in Friuli.