Paolo Navigajoso

Paolo Navigajoso (died 1277) was a scion of the noble Venetian Navigajoso family and third

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

ruler of the island of

Lemnos Lemnos or Limnos ( el, Λήμνος; grc, Λῆμνος) is a Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within the Lemnos regional unit, which is part of the North Aegean region. The p ...

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...

. Paolo was the eldest son and heir of

Leonardo Navigajoso Leonardo Navigajoso (died 1260) was a Venetian nobleman and second Latin ruler of the island of Lemnos in Greece. Leonardo inherited the title of '' megadux'' of the Latin Empire and the rule of one-half of Lemnos upon the death of his father, Filo ...

. Upon his father's death in 1260, he inherited one-half of Lemnos as well as the title '' megadux'' of the

Latin Empire The Latin Empire, also referred to as the Latin Empire of Constantinople, was a feudal Crusader state founded by the leaders of the Fourth Crusade on lands captured from the Byzantine Empire. The Latin Empire was intended to replace the Byzant ...

, which he continued to use even though the Latin Empire fell to the Empire of Nicaea in 1261. Along with his two brothers, Filippo and Nicolao, and his cousins, Giovanni Foscari and Filocalo Gradenigo, who controlled the other half of the island, he opposed the Byzantines when they attacked the island in 1276 under

Licario Licario, called Ikarios ( gr, Ἰκάριος) by the Greek chroniclers, was a Byzantine admiral of Italian origin in the 13th century. At odds with the Latin barons (the "triarchs") of his native Euboea, he entered the service of the Byzantine em ...

. However, Licario persisted and gradually took the island as the Latin princes fell in battle one by one. Nevertheless, the main fortress of Kastro continued to resist, and after Paolo was killed in 1277, his widow, Maria Sanudo, a daughter of

Angelo Sanudo Angelo Sanudo (died 1262) was the second Duke of the Archipelago from 1227, when his father, Marco I, died, until his own death. Family Angelo was a son of Marco I Sanudo. According to "The Latins in the Levant. A History of Frankish Greece (1 ...

, continued to defend it until she was eventually forced to surrender it in 1278. 1277 deaths Year of birth unknown Medieval Lemnos Latin Empire people {{Greece-hist-stub