Ivan 3 and Sofia are their children. Sophia Paleolog and the "terrible secret" of the Assumption Cathedral

Sofia Fominichna Paleolog, she is Zoya Paleologina (Greek Ζωή Σοφία Παλαιολογίνα). Born ca. 1455 - died April 7, 1503. Grand Duchess of Moscow, second wife of Ivan III, mother of Vasily III, grandmother of Ivan the Terrible. She came from the Byzantine imperial dynasty of the Palaiologos.

Sofia (Zoya) Paleolog was born around 1455.

Father - Thomas Palaiologos, brother of the last emperor of Byzantium Constantine XI, despot of the Morea (Peloponnese peninsula).

Her maternal grandfather was Centurione II Zaccaria, the last Frankish prince of Achaia. Centurione came from a Genoese merchant family. His father was placed to rule Achaia by the Neapolitan king Charles III of Anjou. Centurione inherited power from his father and ruled in the principality until 1430, when the despot of the Morea, Thomas Palaiologos, launched a large-scale offensive against his possessions. This forced the prince to retreat to his hereditary castle in Messenia, where he died in 1432, two years after the peace treaty, according to which Thomas married his daughter Catherine. After his death, the territory of the principality became part of the despotate.

Sophia's elder sister (Zoya) - Elena Paleologina Moreiskaya (1431 - November 7, 1473), from 1446 was the wife of the Serbian despot Lazar Brankovich, and after the capture of Serbia by Muslims in 1459, she fled to the Greek island of Lefkada, where she took the veil.

She also had two surviving brothers - Andrei Palaiologos (1453-1502) and Manuel Palaiologos (1455-1512).

Decisive in the fate of Sophia (Zoya) was the fall of the Byzantine Empire. Emperor Constantine died in 1453 during the capture of Constantinople, 7 years later, in 1460, Morea was captured by the Turkish Sultan Mehmed II, Thomas went to the island of Corfu, then to Rome, where he soon died.

She and her brothers - 7-year-old Andrei and 5-year-old Manuel moved to Rome 5 years after her father. There she received the name Sophia. Palaiologos settled at the court of Pope Sixtus IV (customer of the Sistine Chapel). To get support in Last year During his life, Thomas converted to Catholicism.

After the death of Thomas on May 12, 1465 (his wife Catherine died a little earlier in the same year), the well-known Greek scientist, Cardinal Bessarion of Nicaea, a supporter of the union, took care of his children. His letter has been preserved, in which he gave instructions to the teacher of orphans. From this letter it follows that the pope will continue to release 3600 ecu per year for their maintenance (200 ecu per month: for children, their clothes, horses and servants; plus it was necessary to save for a rainy day, and spend 100 ecu on the maintenance of a modest yard , which included a doctor, professor Latin, professors Greek, translator and 1-2 priests).

After the death of Thomas, the crown of the Palaiologos was de jure inherited by his son Andrei, who sold it to various European monarchs and died in poverty. The second son of Thomas Palaiologos, Manuel, during the reign of Bayezid II returned to Istanbul and surrendered to the mercy of the Sultan. According to some sources, he converted to Islam, started a family and served in the Turkish navy.

In 1466, the Venetian lordship offered the Cypriot king Jacques II de Lusignan the candidacy of Sophia as a bride, but he refused. According to Fr. Pirlinga, the brilliance of her name and the glory of her ancestors were a poor bulwark against the Ottoman ships cruising the waters of the Mediterranean. Around 1467, Pope Paul II, through Cardinal Vissarion, offered her hand to Prince Caracciolo, a noble Italian rich man. They were solemnly engaged, but the marriage did not take place.

The wedding of Sophia Paleolog and Ivan III

The role of Sophia Paleolog was played by an actress.

“My heroine is a kind, strong princess. A person always tries to cope with adversity, so the series is more about strength than about female weaknesses. It is about how a person copes with his passions, how he humbles himself, endures, about how love wins. It seems to me that this is a film about the hope for happiness, ”Maria Andreeva said about her heroine.

Also, the image of Sophia Palaiologos is widely present in fiction.

"Byzantine"- A novel by Nikolai Spassky. The action takes place in Italy in the 15th century against the background of the consequences of the fall of Constantinople. The main character intrigues to pass off Zoya Paleolog for the Russian Tsar.

"Sophia Palaiologos - from Byzantium to Russia" A novel by Georgios Leonardos.

"Basurman"- a novel by Ivan Lazhechnikov about the doctor Sofia.

Nikolai Aksakov dedicated a story to the Venetian doctor Leon Zhidovin, which spoke about the friendship of the Jewish doctor with the humanist Pico della Mirandola, and about the journey from Italy together with the brother of Queen Sophia Andrei Paleolog, Russian envoys Semyon Tolbuzin, Manuil and Dmitry Ralev, and Italian masters - architects , jewelers, gunners. - invited to the service of the Moscow sovereign.

S. NIKITIN, forensic expert and candidate of historical sciences T. PANOVA.

The past appears before us both in the form of a fragile archaeological find that has lain in the ground for several centuries, and a description of an event that happened a long time ago and entered on the page of the chronicle in the silence of a monastery cell. We judge the life of the people of the Middle Ages by the magnificent monuments of church architecture and by simple household items preserved in the cultural layer of the city. And behind all this are people whose names did not always find their way into the annals and other written sources of the Russian Middle Ages. Studying Russian history, you involuntarily think about the fate of these people and try to imagine what the heroes of those distant events looked like. Due to the fact that secular art in Rus' originated late, only in the second half of the 17th century, we do not know the true appearance of the great and specific Russian princes and princesses, church hierarchs and diplomats, merchants and chronicler monks, warriors and artisans.

Science and life // Illustrations

But sometimes a fortunate combination of circumstances and the enthusiasm of researchers help our contemporary, as if with his own eyes, to meet a person who lived many centuries ago. Thanks to the method of plastic reconstruction from the skull, at the end of 1994, a sculptural portrait of the Grand Duchess Sophia Paleolog, the second wife of the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III, the grandmother of Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible, was restored. For the first time in the last almost five centuries, it became possible to peer into the face of a woman whose name is well known to us from chronicle stories about the events of the late 15th century.

And long-standing events involuntarily came to life, forcing me to mentally plunge into that era and look at the very fate of the Grand Duchess and the episodes associated with her. life path this woman began between 1443-1449 ( exact date her birth is unknown). Zoya Palaiologos was the niece of the last Byzantine emperor Constantine XI (in 1453 Byzantium fell under the blows of the Turks, and the emperor himself died defending the capital of his state) and, orphaned early, was brought up with her brothers at the court of the Pope. This circumstance decided the fate of the representative of the once powerful, but fading dynasty, which lost both its high position and all material wealth. Pope Paul II, in search of a way to strengthen his influence on Rus', offered the widowed man in 1467 Ivan III to marry Zoya Paleolog. Negotiations on this matter, which began in 1469, dragged on for three years - Metropolitan Philip sharply opposed this marriage, who was not inspired by the marriage of the Grand Duke to a Greek woman who was brought up at the court of the head of the Roman Catholic Church.

And yet, at the beginning of 1472, the ambassadors of Ivan III went to Rome for a bride. In June of the same year, Zoya Paleolog, accompanied by a large retinue, set off on a long journey to Rus', to "Muscovy", as foreigners then called the Muscovite state.

The convoy of the bride of Ivan III crossed the whole of Europe from south to north, heading to the German port of Lübeck. During the stops of the distinguished guest in the cities, magnificent receptions and knightly tournaments were held in her honor. The authorities of the cities presented gifts to the pupil of the papal throne - silver dishes, wine, and the townspeople of Nuremberg handed her as many as twenty boxes of sweets. On September 10, 1472, a ship with travelers headed for Kolyvan - that is how Russian sources then called the modern city of Tallinn, but arrived there only after eleven days: stormy weather was in the Baltic in those days. Then, through Yuryev (now the city of Tartu), Pskov and Novgorod, the procession went to Moscow.

However, the final transition was somewhat overshadowed. The fact is that the papal representative Antonio Bonumbre was carrying a large catholic cross. The news of this reached Moscow, which caused an unprecedented scandal. Metropolitan Philip said that if the cross was brought into the city, he would immediately leave it. An attempt to openly demonstrate the symbol of the Catholic faith could not but disturb the Grand Duke. Russian chronicles, which were able to find streamlined formulations when describing delicate situations, this time were unanimously frank. They noted that the envoy of Ivan III, the boyar Fyodor Davydovich Khromoy, fulfilling the order of the prince, simply took the "roof" from the papal priest by force, meeting the bride's convoy 15 miles from Moscow. As you can see, the tough position of the head of the Russian Church in upholding the purity of faith then turned out to be stronger than the traditions of diplomacy and the laws of hospitality.

Zoya Palaiologos arrived in Moscow on November 12, 1472, and on the same day she was married to Ivan III. So the Byzantine princess, a Greek by birth, Zoya Paleolog - the Grand Russian Princess Sophia Fominichna, as they began to call her in Rus', entered Russian history. But this dynastic marriage did not bring tangible results to Rome either in resolving religious issues or in drawing Muscovy into an alliance to combat the growing Turkish danger. Pursuing a completely independent policy, Ivan III saw in contacts with the Italian city-republics only a source of advanced ideas in various fields of culture and technology. All five embassies that he sent to Italy Grand Duke at the end of the 15th century, they returned to Moscow accompanied by architects and doctors, jewelers and money-makers, specialists in the field of weapons and serfdom. The Greek and Italian nobility, whose representatives labored in the diplomatic service, reached out to Moscow; many of them settled in Rus'.

For a while, Sophia Paleolog kept in touch with her family. Twice her brother Andreas, or Andrei, as the Russian chronicles call him, came to Moscow with embassies. He was brought here primarily by the desire to improve his financial situation. And in 1480 he even favorably married his daughter Maria to Prince Vasily Vereisky, Ivan III's nephew. However, the life of Maria Andreevna in Rus' was unsuccessful. And Sophia Paleolog was to blame for this. She gave her niece jewelry that once belonged to the first wife of Ivan III. The Grand Duke, who did not know about this, was going, it turns out, to give them to Elena Voloshanka, the wife of his eldest son Ivan the Young (from his first marriage). And in 1483, a big family scandal erupted: "... the great prince would like to give the daughter-in-law of his first Grand Duchess a fathom, and asked that second princess of the Grand Roman. gave, and a lot ... ", - so, not without gloating, many chronicles described this event.

Enraged, Ivan III demanded that Vasily Vereisky return the treasures and, after the latter refused to do so, wanted to imprison him. Prince Vasily Mikhailovich had no choice but to flee to Lithuania with his wife Maria; at the same time, they barely escaped the chase sent for them.

Sophia Paleolog made a very serious mistake. The grand ducal treasury was the subject of special concern for more than one generation of Moscow sovereigns, who tried to increase family treasures. The chronicles continued to allow not very friendly comments about the Grand Duchess Sophia. Apparently, it was difficult for a foreigner to comprehend the laws of a new country for her, a country with a difficult historical fate, with its own traditions.

And yet, the arrival of this Western European woman in Moscow turned out to be unexpectedly interesting and useful for the capital of Rus'. Not without the influence of the Greek Grand Duchess and her Greek-Italian entourage, Ivan III decided on a grandiose restructuring of his residence. At the end of the 15th - beginning of the 16th century, according to the projects of invited Italian architects, the Kremlin was rebuilt, the Assumption and Archangel Cathedrals, the Palace of Facets and the Treasury in the Kremlin were erected, the first stone grand ducal palace, monasteries and temples were built in Moscow. Today we see many of these buildings the same as they were during the life of Sophia Paleolog.

Interest in the personality of this woman is also explained by the fact that in the last decades of the 15th century she took part in the complex dynastic struggle that unfolded at the court of Ivan III. Back in the 1480s, two groups of Moscow nobility formed here, one of which supported the direct heir to the throne, Prince Ivan the Young. But he died in 1490, at the age of thirty-two, and Sophia wanted her son Vasily to become the heir (in total, she had twelve children in her marriage to Ivan III), and not Ivan III's grandson Dmitry (the only child of Ivan the Young). The long struggle went on with varying success and ended in 1499 with the victory of the supporters of Princess Sophia, who experienced many difficulties along the way.

Sophia Paleolog died on April 7, 1503. She was buried in the grand ducal tomb of the Ascension Convent in the Kremlin. The buildings of this monastery were dismantled in 1929, and the sarcophagi with the remains of the Grand Duchesses and Empresses were transferred to the basement chamber of the Archangel Cathedral in the Kremlin, where they remain today. This circumstance, as well as the good preservation of the skeleton of Sophia Paleolog, allowed specialists to recreate her appearance. The work was carried out at the Moscow Bureau of Forensic Medical Examination. Apparently, there is no need to describe in detail the recovery process. We only note that the portrait was reproduced using all the scientific methods available today in the arsenal of the Russian school of anthropological reconstruction, founded by M. M. Gerasimov.

A study of the remains of Sophia Palaiologos showed that she was not tall - about 160 cm. The skull and each bone were carefully studied, and as a result it was found that the death of the Grand Duchess occurred at the age of 55-60 years and that the Greek princess ... I would like to stop here and remember deontology - the science of medical ethics. Probably, it is necessary to introduce into this science such a section as post-mortem deontology, when an anthropologist, forensic expert or pathologist is not entitled to inform the general public about what he became aware of the diseases of the deceased - even several centuries ago. So, as a result of research of the remains, it was found that Sophia was a plump woman, with strong-willed features and had a mustache that did not spoil her at all.

Plastic reconstruction (author - S. A. Nikitin) was carried out using soft sculptural clay according to original methodology tested on the results of many years of operational work. The casting, which was then made in plaster, was tinted to look like Carrara marble.

Looking at the restored facial features of Grand Duchess Sophia Paleolog, one involuntarily comes to the conclusion that only such a woman could be a participant in those complex events that we described above. The sculptural portrait of the princess testifies to her mind, decisive and strong character, hardened by an orphan childhood, and the difficulties of adapting to the unusual conditions of Muscovite Rus'.

When the appearance of this woman appeared before us, it became clear once again that nothing happens by chance in nature. We are talking about the striking resemblance of Sophia Paleolog and her grandson, Tsar Ivan IV, whose true appearance is well known to us from the work of the famous Soviet anthropologist M. M. Gerasimov. The scientist, working on the portrait of Ivan Vasilyevich, noted the features of the Mediterranean type in his appearance, linking this precisely with the influence of the blood of his grandmother, Sophia Paleolog.

Recently, researchers had an interesting idea - to compare not only portraits recreated by human hands, but also what nature itself created - the skulls of these two people. And then a study of the skull of the Grand Duchess and an exact copy of the skull of Ivan IV was carried out using the shadow photo overlay method developed by the author of the sculptural reconstruction of the portrait of Sophia Paleolog. And the results exceeded all expectations, so many coincidences were revealed. They can be seen in the photographs (p. 83).

Today, it is Moscow, Russia, that has a unique portrait-reconstruction of a princess from the Palaiologos dynasty. Attempts to discover lifetime pictures of Zoe in her younger years in the Vatican Museum in Rome, where she once lived, were unsuccessful.

Thus, the studies of historians and forensic experts made it possible for our contemporaries to look into the 15th century and get to know the participants of those distant events better.

SOFIA FOMINICHNA PALEOLOGIST(nee Zoya) (1443/1449–1503) – second wife of c. book. Moscow Ivan III Vasilyevich, daughter of the ruler (despot) of the Morea (Peloponnese) Thomas Palaiologos, niece of the last Byzantine emperor Constantine XI, who died during the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453. She was born between 1443 and 1449 in the Peloponnese.

After 1453 Thomas of Morea moved with his family to Rome. There, Sophia received a good upbringing for that time at the court of the enlightened Pope Sixtus IV (known for his patronage of Michelangelo, to whom he ordered the painting of the chapel of his name at the papal chambers). The idea of the marriage of the grown-up Zoya with the widowed ruler of the Moscow kingdom, Ivan III, who in 1467 buried his first wife Maria Borisovna, daughter of the Prince of Tver, also belonged to the papal curia. The main purpose of the marriage was to involve Rus' in a pan-European crusade against Turkey. The French and Milanese dukes unsuccessfully wooed Zoya, who wanted to intermarry with the noble Palaiologos family, but the curia was already focused on Moscow.

A papal legate sent to Russia in 1467, who proposed marriage, was received with honors. Ivan III, who strengthened the grand ducal power, hoped that kinship with the Byzantine house would help Muscovy increase international prestige, which had noticeably shaken over the two centuries of the Horde yoke, and help increase the authority of the grand ducal power within the country.

The ambassador of Ivan III, Ivan Fryazin, sent along with the legate to Rome in order to “see the bride”, said that Zoya was short, plump, with beautiful big eyes and unusually white skin (cleanliness of the skin as a sign of health was highly valued in Muscovy). With him from Rome, Fryazin brought a portrait of the bride in the form of a parsuna (images of a real person as a saint, the chronicler reports that Zoya was “painted on the icon”). Many contemporaries also talked about the sharp mind of a young woman.

In March 1472, the second embassy to the pope ended with the arrival of Zoe in Moscow. Together with her, her dowry arrived in Russia, which included (in addition to many material values and jewelry) a huge "library" - Greek "parchments", Latin chronographs, Hebrew manuscripts, which later, apparently, entered the library of Ivan the Terrible. Many wagons with dowries were accompanied by the papal legate Anthony, dressed in a red cardinal dress and carrying a four-pointed Catholic cross as a sign of hope for the conversion of the Russian prince to Catholicism. The cross was taken away from Anthony at the entrance to Moscow on the orders of Metropolitan Philip, who did not approve of this marriage.

November 12, 1472, having converted to Orthodoxy under the name of Sophia, Zoya was married to Ivan III. At the same time, the wife "catholicized" her husband, and the husband "orthodoxed" his wife, which was perceived by contemporaries as a victory. Orthodox faith over Latin.

On April 18, 1474, Sophia gave birth to the first (quickly deceased) daughter Anna, then another daughter (who also died so quickly that they did not have time to christen her). Disappointment in family life compensated by activities outside the home. Her husband consulted with her in making state decisions (in 1474 he bought out half of the Rostov principality, a friendly alliance was concluded with the Crimean Khan Mengli Giray). Baron Herberstein, who twice came to Moscow as the ambassador of the German emperor under Vasily II, after hearing a lot of boyar talk, wrote about Sophia in his notes that she was an unusually cunning woman who had big influence to the prince.

Sophia actively participated in diplomatic receptions (the Venetian envoy Cantarini noted that the reception organized by her was "very majestic and affectionate"). According to a legend cited not only by Russian chronicles, but also by the English poet John Milton, in 1477 Sophia was able to outwit the Tatar Khan, declaring that she had a sign from above about the construction of a church to St. and the actions of the Kremlin. This story presents Sophia as a resolute nature (“she put them out of the Kremlin, she demolished the house, although she did not build the temple”). In 1478 Rus' actually stopped paying tribute to the Horde; two years remained before the complete overthrow of the yoke.

March 25, 1479 Sophia gave birth to a son, the future Prince Vasily III Ivanovich.

In 1480, again on the “advice” of his wife, Ivan III went with the militia to the Ugra River (near Kaluga), where the army of the Tatar Khan Akhmat was stationed. "Standing on the Ugra" did not end with a battle. The onset of frost and lack of food forced the khan and his army to leave. These events put an end to the Horde yoke. The main obstacle to strengthening the grand duke's power collapsed and, relying on his dynastic connection with "Orthodox Rome" (Constantinople) through his wife Sophia, Ivan III proclaimed himself the successor to the sovereign rights of the Byzantine emperors. The Moscow coat of arms with George the Victorious was combined with the double-headed eagle - the ancient coat of arms of Byzantium. This emphasized that Moscow is the heir of the Byzantine Empire, Ivan III is “the king of all Orthodoxy”, the Russian Church is the successor of the Greek one. Under the influence of Sophia, the ceremonial of the Grand Duke's court acquired an unprecedented splendor, similar to the Byzantine-Roman.

In 1483, Sophia's authority was shaken: she imprudently presented a precious family necklace ("sazhen") that had previously belonged to Maria Borisovna, the first wife of Ivan III, to her niece, the wife of the Vereisk prince Vasily Mikhailovich. The husband intended an expensive gift for his daughter-in-law Elena Stepanovna Voloshanka, the wife of his son Ivan the Young from his first marriage. In the conflict that arose (Ivan III demanded the return of the necklace to the treasury), but Vasily Mikhailovich chose to flee with the necklace to Lithuania. Taking advantage of this, the Moscow boyar elite, dissatisfied with the success of the prince's centralization policy, opposed Sophia, considering her the ideological inspirer of Ivan's innovations, which infringed on the interests of his children from his first marriage.

Sophia began a stubborn struggle to justify the right to the Moscow throne for her son Vasily. When her son was 8 years old, she even made an attempt to organize a conspiracy against her husband (1497), but he was uncovered, and Sophia herself was convicted on suspicion of magic and connection with the “witch woman” (1498) and, together with her son Vasily, was disgraced .

But fate was merciful to this indefatigable defender of the rights of her kind (during the years of her 30-year marriage, Sophia gave birth to 5 sons and 4 daughters). The death of the eldest son of Ivan III, Ivan the Young, forced Sophia's wife to change her anger to mercy and return the exiles to Moscow. To celebrate, Sophia ordered a church shroud with her name (“Princess of Tsargorod, grand duchess Moscow Sophia of the Grand Duke of Moscow).

Feeling like a mistress in the capital again, Sophia managed to attract doctors, cultural figures and especially architects to Moscow; in Moscow began an active stone building. The architects Aristotle Fioravanti, Marco Ruffo, Aleviz Fryazin, Antonio and Petro Solari, who arrived from Sophia’s homeland and at her order, erected the Faceted Chamber, the Assumption and the Annunciation Cathedrals on the Cathedral Square of the Kremlin; completed the construction of the Archangel Cathedral. Sophia's influence on her husband increased. Boyar Bersen reproachfully said then, according to the chronicler: "Our sovereign, locking himself up, does all sorts of things by the bed." According to the great Russian historian V.O. Klyuchevsky, Sophia “cannot be denied influence on the decorative setting and backstage life of the Moscow court, on court intrigues and personal relationships; but she could act on political affairs only by suggestions that echoed the secret or vague thoughts of Ivan himself.

Sophia died on August 7, 1503 in Moscow two years earlier than Ivan III, having achieved many honors. She was buried in the Moscow Ascension Convent of the Kremlin.

In December 1994, in connection with the transfer of the remains of the princely and royal wives to the basement chamber of the Archangel Cathedral, a sculptural portrait of Sophia was restored from the well-preserved skull of Sophia by M.M. Gerasimov’s student S.A. Nikitin.

Lev Pushkarev, Natalya Pushkareva

The niece of the last ruler of Byzantium, having survived the collapse of one empire, decided to revive it in a new place.

Mother of the "Third Rome"

At the end of the 15th century, in the Russian lands united around Moscow, the concept began to emerge, according to which the Russian state was the successor of the Byzantine Empire. A few decades later, the thesis "Moscow - the Third Rome" will become a symbol of the state ideology of the Russian state.

A major role in the formation of a new ideology and in the changes that were taking place at that time inside Russia was destined to be played by a woman whose name was heard by almost everyone who had ever come into contact with Russian history. Sophia Paleolog, wife of Grand Duke Ivan III, has contributed to the development of Russian architecture, medicine, culture and many other areas of life.

There is another view of her, according to which she was the "Russian Catherine de Medici", whose intrigues set off the development of Russia along a completely different path and brought confusion to the life of the state.

The truth, as usual, lies somewhere in between. Sophia Paleolog did not choose Russia - Russia chose her, a girl from the last dynasty of Byzantine emperors, as a wife for the Grand Duke of Moscow.

Byzantine orphan at the papal court

Zoya Paleologina, daughter Despot (this is the title of the position) Morea Thomas Palaiologos, was born at a tragic time. In 1453 Byzantine Empire, heiress ancient rome, after a thousand years of existence, collapsed under the blows of the Ottomans. The fall of Constantinople was a symbol of the empire's death, in which Emperor Constantine XI, brother of Thomas Palaiologos and uncle of Zoe.

The Despotate of Morea, a province of Byzantium ruled by Thomas Palaiologos, held out until 1460. These years, Zoya lived with her father and brothers in Mystra, the capital of Morea, a city located next to Ancient Sparta. After Sultan Mehmed II captured the Morea, Thomas Palaiologos went to the island of Corfu, and then to Rome, where he died.

Children from the royal family of the lost empire lived at the court of the Pope. Shortly before the death of Thomas Palaiologos, in order to gain support, he converted to Catholicism. His children also became Catholics. Zoya after baptism in the Roman rite was named Sophia.

A 10-year-old girl, taken into the care of the papal court, did not have the opportunity to decide anything on her own. She was appointed mentor Cardinal Vissarion of Nicaea, one of the authors of the union, which was supposed to unite Catholics and Orthodox under the common authority of the Pope.

Sophia's fate was going to be arranged through marriage. In 1466 she was offered as a bride to a Cypriot King Jacques II de Lusignan but he refused. In 1467 she was offered as a wife Prince Caracciolo, a noble Italian rich man. The prince agreed, after which a solemn betrothal took place.

Bride on the "icon"

But Sophia was not destined to become the wife of an Italian. In Rome, it became known that the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III had been widowed. The Russian prince was young, at the time of the death of his first wife he was only 27 years old, and it was expected that he would soon be looking for a new wife.

Cardinal Vissarion of Nicaea saw this as a chance to promote his idea of Uniatism to Russian lands. From his filing in 1469 Pope Paul II sent a letter to Ivan III, in which he proposed 14-year-old Sophia Paleolog as a bride. The letter referred to her as an "Orthodox Christian" without mentioning her conversion to Catholicism.

Ivan III was not devoid of ambition, which his wife would often play later on. Upon learning that the niece of the Byzantine emperor was proposed as a bride, he agreed.

Negotiations, however, had just begun - it was necessary to discuss all the details. The Russian ambassador sent to Rome returned with a gift that shocked both the groom and his entourage. In the annals, this fact was reflected in the words “bring the princess on the icon.”

The fact is that in Russia at that time secular painting did not exist at all, and the portrait of Sophia sent to Ivan III was perceived in Moscow as an “icon”.

However, having figured out what was happening, the Moscow prince was pleased with the appearance of the bride. In the historical literature there are various descriptions Sophia Paleolog - from beauty to ugliness. In the 1990s, studies were carried out on the remains of the wife of Ivan III, during which her body was also restored. appearance. Sophia was a short woman (about 160 cm), prone to corpulence, with strong-willed features that can be called, if not beautiful, then rather pretty. Be that as it may, Ivan III liked her.

The failure of Vissarion of Nicaea

The formalities were settled by the spring of 1472, when a new Russian embassy arrived in Rome, this time for the bride herself.

On June 1, 1472, an absentee betrothal took place in the Basilica of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. Russian Deputy Grand Duke Ambassador Ivan Fryazin. The guests were wife of the ruler of Florence, Lorenzo the Magnificent, Clarice Orsini and Queen Katarina of Bosnia. The Pope, in addition to gifts, gave the bride a dowry of 6,000 ducats.

On June 24, 1472, a large convoy of Sophia Paleolog, together with the Russian ambassador, left Rome. The bride was accompanied by a Roman retinue led by Cardinal Bessarion of Nicaea.

It was necessary to get to Moscow through Germany along the Baltic Sea, and then through the Baltic States, Pskov and Novgorod. Such a difficult route was due to the fact that Russia once again began to have political problems with Poland during this period.

From time immemorial, the Byzantines were famous for their cunning and deceit. The fact that Sophia Palaiologos inherited these qualities in full, Bessarion of Nicaea found out soon after the bride's convoy crossed the border of Russia. The 17-year-old girl announced that from now on she would no longer perform Catholic rites, but would return to the faith of her ancestors, that is, to Orthodoxy. All the ambitious plans of the cardinal collapsed. Attempts by Catholics to gain a foothold in Moscow and increase their influence failed.

November 12, 1472 Sophia entered Moscow. Here, too, there were many who were wary of her, seeing her as a "Roman agent." According to some information, Metropolitan Philip, dissatisfied with the bride, refused to hold the wedding ceremony, because of which the ceremony was held Kolomna Archpriest Hosea.

But be that as it may, Sophia Paleolog became the wife of Ivan III.

How Sophia delivered Russia from the yoke

Their marriage lasted 30 years, she gave birth to her husband 12 children, of which five sons and four daughters survived to adulthood. Judging by historical documents, the Grand Duke was attached to his wife and children, for which he even received reproaches from high-ranking ministers of the church, who believed that this was detrimental to state interests.

Sophia never forgot about her origin and behaved as, in her opinion, the emperor's niece was supposed to behave. Under her influence, the receptions of the Grand Duke, especially the receptions of ambassadors, were furnished with a complex and colorful ceremonial, similar to the Byzantine one. Thanks to her, the Byzantine double-headed eagle migrated to Russian heraldry. Thanks to her influence, Grand Duke Ivan III began to call himself the "Russian Tsar". Under the son and grandson of Sophia Paleolog, this naming of the Russian ruler will become official.

Judging by the actions and deeds of Sophia, she, having lost her native Byzantium, seriously set about building it in another Orthodox country. To help her was the ambition of her husband, on whom she successfully played.

When the Horde Khan Akhmat prepared an invasion of Russian lands and in Moscow they discussed the issue of the amount of tribute with which you can pay off misfortune, Sophia intervened in the matter. Bursting into tears, she began to reproach her husband for the fact that the country was still forced to pay tribute and that it was time to end this shameful situation. Ivan III was not a warlike person, but his wife's reproaches touched him to the core. He decided to gather an army and march towards Akhmat.

At the same time, the Grand Duke sent his wife and children first to Dmitrov, and then to Beloozero, fearing a military failure.

But failure did not happen - on the Ugra River, where the troops of Akhmat and Ivan III met, the battle did not happen. After what is known as “standing on the Ugra”, Akhmat retreated without a fight, and dependence on the Horde ended completely.

15th century rebuilding

Sophia inspired her husband that the sovereign of such a great power as he could not live in the capital with wooden churches and chambers. Under the influence of his wife, Ivan III began the restructuring of the Kremlin. For the construction of the Assumption Cathedral from Italy was invited architect Aristotle Fioravanti. Actively used in construction White stone, which is why the expression “white-stone Moscow”, which has been preserved for centuries, appeared.

The invitation of foreign experts in various fields became a widespread phenomenon under Sophia Paleolog. The Italians and Greeks, who took up the post of ambassadors under Ivan III, will begin to actively invite their fellow countrymen to Russia: architects, jewelers, coiners and gunsmiths. Among the visitors were a large number of professional doctors.

Sophia arrived in Moscow with a large dowry, part of which was occupied by a library that included Greek parchments, Latin chronographs, ancient Eastern manuscripts, among which were poems Homer, essays Aristotle and Plato and even books from the Library of Alexandria.

These books formed the basis of the legendary missing library of Ivan the Terrible, which enthusiasts are trying to find to this day. Skeptics, however, believe that such a library did not really exist.

Speaking about the hostile and wary attitude towards Sophia of the Russians, it must be said that they were embarrassed by her independent behavior, active interference in state affairs. Such behavior for Sophia's predecessors as Grand Duchesses, and simply for Russian women, was uncharacteristic.

Battle of the heirs

By the time of the second marriage of Ivan III, he already had a son from his first wife - Ivan Young who was declared heir to the throne. But with the birth of children, Sophia began to grow tension. The Russian nobility split into two groups, one of which supported Ivan the Young, and the second - Sophia.

Relations between the stepmother and stepson did not work out, so much so that Ivan III himself had to exhort his son to behave decently.

Ivan Molodoy was only three years younger than Sophia and did not feel respect for her, apparently considering his father's new marriage a betrayal of his dead mother.

In 1479, Sophia, who had previously given birth only to girls, gave birth to a son named Vasily. As a true representative of the Byzantine imperial family, she was ready to provide her son with the throne at any cost.

By this time, Ivan the Young was already mentioned in Russian documents as a co-ruler of his father. And in 1483 the heir married daughter of the ruler of Moldavia, Stephen the Great, Elena Voloshanka.

The relationship between Sophia and Elena immediately became hostile. When in 1483 Elena gave birth to a son Dmitry, Vasily's prospects for inheriting his father's throne became completely illusory.

Women's rivalry at the court of Ivan III was fierce. Both Elena and Sophia were eager to get rid of not only their rival, but also her offspring.

In 1484, Ivan III decided to give his daughter-in-law a pearl dowry left over from his first wife. But then it turned out that Sophia had already given it to her relative. The Grand Duke, enraged by the arbitrariness of his wife, forced her to return the gift, and the relative herself, together with her husband, had to flee from the Russian lands out of fear of punishment.

The loser loses everything

In 1490, the heir to the throne, Ivan the Young, fell ill with "aching legs." Especially for his treatment from Venice was called doctor Lebi Zhidovin, but he could not help, and on March 7, 1490, the heir died. The doctor was executed by order of Ivan III, and rumors circulated in Moscow that Ivan Young died as a result of poisoning, which was the work of Sophia Paleolog.

There is no evidence for this, however. After the death of Ivan the Young, his son became the new heir, known in Russian historiography as Dmitry Ivanovich Vnuk.

Dmitry Vnuk was not officially proclaimed heir, and therefore Sophia Paleolog continued her attempts to achieve the throne for Vasily.

In 1497, a conspiracy of supporters of Vasily and Sophia was uncovered. Enraged, Ivan III sent its participants to the chopping block, but did not touch his wife and son. However, they were in disgrace, actually under house arrest. On February 4, 1498, Dmitry Vnuk was officially proclaimed heir to the throne.

The fight, however, was not over. Soon, Sophia's party managed to achieve revenge - this time, the supporters of Dmitry and Elena Voloshanka were given into the hands of the executioners. The denouement came on April 11, 1502. New accusations of a conspiracy against Dmitry Vnuk and his mother Ivan III considered convincing, sending them under house arrest. A few days later, Vasily was proclaimed co-ruler of his father and heir to the throne, and Dmitry Vnuk and his mother were placed in prison.

Birth of an empire

Sophia Paleolog, who actually elevated her son to the Russian throne, herself did not live up to this moment. She died on April 7, 1503 and was buried in a massive white stone sarcophagus in the tomb of the Ascension Cathedral in the Kremlin next to the grave. Maria Borisovna, the first wife of Ivan III.

The Grand Duke, who was widowed for the second time, outlived his beloved Sophia by two years, passing away in October 1505. Elena Voloshanka died in prison.

Vasily III, having ascended the throne, first of all tightened the conditions of detention for a competitor - Dmitry Vnuk was shackled in iron shackles and placed in a small cell. In 1509, the 25-year-old noble prisoner died.

In 1514, in an agreement with Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I Vasily III for the first time in the history of Rus' is called the emperor of the Rus. This charter is then used Peter I as proof of their rights to be crowned as emperor.

The efforts of Sophia Palaiologos, a proud Byzantine who set about building a new empire to replace the lost one, were not in vain.

Sophia Palaiologos, who was also called Zoya Paleologne, was born in 1455 in the city of Mistra, Greece.

Childhood princess

The future grandmother of Ivan the Terrible was born in the family of the despot of Morea named Thomas Paleologus at a not very prosperous time - in decadent times for Byzantium. When Constantinople fell to Turkey and was taken by Sultan Mehmed II, the girl's father Thomas Palaiologos and his family fled to Kofra.

Later in Rome, the family changed their faith to Catholicism, and when Sophia was 10 years old, her father died. Unfortunately for the girl, her mother, Ekaterina Akhaiskaya, had died a year earlier, which crippled her father.

The children of Palaiologos - Zoya, Manuel and Andrei, aged 10, 5 and 7 - settled in Rome under the tutelage of the Greek scientist Bessarion of Nicaea, who at that time served as a cardinal under the Pope. The Byzantine princess Sophia and her brother princes were raised in the Catholic tradition. With the permission of the pope, Bessarion of Nicaea paid for the servants of the Palaiologos, doctors, language professors, as well as a whole staff of foreign translators and clergy. The orphans received an excellent education.

Marriage

As soon as Sophia grew up, the Venetian subjects began to look for her noble spouse.

She was prophesied as a wife to the Cypriot king Jacques II de Lusignan. The marriage did not take place in order to avoid quarrels with the Ottoman Empire.
A few months later, Cardinal Vissarion invited Prince Caracciolo of Italy to marry the Byzantine princess. The young people got engaged. However, Sophia threw all her efforts into not getting engaged to a non-Christian (she continued to adhere to Orthodoxy).
By coincidence, in 1467, the wife of the Grand Duke of Moscow, Ivan the Third, died in Moscow. One son remained from the marriage. And Pope Paul II, with the aim of planting catholic faith to Rus', invited the widower to the throne of the princess of all Rus' to put a Greek Catholic princess.

Negotiations with the Russian prince lasted three years. Ivan the Third, having received the approval of his mother, churchmen and his boyars, decided to marry. By the way, during the negotiations about the transition of the princess to Catholicism that happened in Rome, the envoys from the Pope did not particularly spread. On the contrary, they reported slyly that the sovereign's bride is a true Orthodox Christian. Surprisingly, they could not even imagine that this is the true truth.

In June 1472, the newlyweds in Rome became engaged in absentia. Then, accompanied by Cardinal Vissarion, the Princess of Moscow left Rome for Moscow.

Princess portrait

The Bologna chroniclers eloquently described Sophia Paleolog as an attractive girl in appearance. When she got married, she appeared to be about 24 years old.

Her skin is white as snow.
The eyes are huge and very expressive, which corresponded to the then canons of beauty.
The height of the princess is 160 cm.
Build - knocked down, dense.

The dowry of Palaiologos included not only jewelry, but also a large number of valuable books, among which were the treatises of Plato, Aristotle, and the unknown works of Homer. These books became the main attraction of the famous library of Ivan the Terrible, which after a while mysterious circumstances disappeared.

In addition, Zoya was very purposeful. She threw every effort not to convert to another faith, betrothed to a Christian man. At the end of her route from Rome to Moscow, when there was no turning back, she announced to her guides that she would renounce Catholicism in marriage and accept Orthodoxy. So the desire of the Pope to spread Catholicism to Rus' through the marriage of Ivan the Third and Palaiologos failed.

Life in Moscow

The influence of Sophia Paleolog on the married spouse was very great, it also became a great boon for Russia, because the wife was very educated and incredibly devoted to her new homeland.

So, it was she who prompted her husband to stop paying tribute to the Golden Horde that burdened them. Thanks to his wife, the Grand Duke decided to cast off the Tatar-Mongolian burden that had weighed on Russia for many centuries. At the same time, his advisers and princes insisted on paying dues, as usual, so as not to start a new bloodshed. In 1480, Ivan the Third announced his decision to the Tatar Khan Akhmat. Then there was a historical bloodless stand on the Ugra, and the Horde left Russia forever, never again demanding tribute from it.

In general, Sophia Paleolog played a very important role in further historical events Rus'. Her broad outlook and bold innovative decisions later allowed the country to make a noticeable breakthrough in the development of culture and architecture. Sofia Paleolog opened Moscow for Europeans. Now Greeks, Italians, learned minds and talented craftsmen rushed to Muscovy. For example, Ivan the Third gladly took under the wing of Italian architects (such as Aristotle Fioravanti), who built many historical masterpieces of architecture in Moscow. At the behest of Sophia, a separate courtyard and luxurious mansions were built for her. They were lost in a fire in 1493 (together with the Palaiologos treasury).

Zoya's personal relationship with her husband Ivan the Third was also prosperous. They had 12 children. But some died in infancy or from disease. So, in their family, five sons and four daughters survived to adulthood.

But life Byzantine princess in Moscow it is quite difficult to call rainbow. The local elite saw the great influence that the spouse had on her husband, and was very unhappy with this.

Sophia's relationship with the adopted son from the deceased first wife, Ivan Molody, did not work out either. The princess really wanted her first-born Vasily to become the heir. And there is a historical version that she was involved in the death of the heir, writing him an Italian doctor with poisonous potions, supposedly to treat sudden onset gout (later he was executed for this).

Sophia had a hand in the removal from the throne of his wife Elena Voloshanka and their son Dmitry. First, Ivan the Third sent Sophia herself into disgrace for inviting witches to her place to create poison for Elena and Dmitry. He forbade his wife to appear in the palace. However, later Ivan the Third ordered to send the grandson of Dmitry, already proclaimed heir to the throne, and his mother to prison for court intrigues, successfully and in a favorable light revealed by his wife Sophia. The grandson was officially deprived of the grand ducal dignity, and the son Vasily was declared the heir to the throne.

So, the Princess of Moscow became the mother of the heir to the Russian throne, Vasily III, and the grandmother of the famous Tsar Ivan the Terrible. There is evidence that the famous grandson had many similarities in both appearance and character with his domineering grandmother from Byzantium.

Death

As they said then, “from old age” - at the age of 48, Sophia Paleolog died on April 7, 1503. The woman was buried in a sarcophagus in the Ascension Cathedral. She was buried next to Ivan's first wife.

By coincidence, in 1929, the Bolsheviks demolished the cathedral, but the Palaiologini sarcophagus survived and was moved to the Archangel Cathedral.

Ivan the Third took the death of the princess hard. At the age of 60, this greatly crippled his health, moreover, recently he and his wife were in constant suspicion and quarrels. However, he continued to appreciate Sophia's mind and her love for Russia. Feeling the approach of his end, he made a will, appointing their common son Vasily as the heir to power.