Florenz of Hainault lived too short a time for the welfare of the Morea;
and Isabelle, once more a widow, was married again in Rome (whither she
had gone for the first papal jubilee of 1300) to a prince of the doughty
house of Savoy, which thus became concerned with the affairs of Greece.
Philip of Savoy was at the time in possession of Piedmont; and, as might
have been expected, Piedmontese methods of government were not adapted to
the latitude of Achaia. He was a man fond of spending, and an adept at
extorting, money. The microscopic Dr Hopf has unearthed from the archives
at Turin the bill—a fairly extensive one—for his wedding-breakfast; and
the magnificent tournament which he organised on the Isthmus of Corinth,
and in which all the Frankish rulers of Greece took part, occupied a
thousand knights for more than twenty days. “He had learned money-making
at home,” it was said, when the extravagant prince from Piedmont let it
be understood that he expected presents from his vassals, and imposed
taxes on the privileged inhabitants of Skorta. But the days of the
Savoyard in Achaia were numbered. The house of Anjou, suzerains of the
principality, had never looked with favour on his marriage with Isabelle;
an excuse was found for deposing him in favour of another Philip, of
Taranto, son of the King of Naples. To make matters smoother, Isabelle
and her husband received, as some compensation for relinquishing all
claims to the Morea, a small strip of territory on the shores of the
Fucine lake. They both left Greece for ever. Isabelle died in Holland;
and Philip of Savoy sleeps in the family vault at Pinerolo, near Turin,
leaving to his posterity by a second marriage the empty title of “Prince
of Achaia.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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