His first care was for the Parthenon, Our Lady of Athens, in which he directed that his body should be laid to rest. He ordered its doors to be replated with silver, its stolen treasures to be bought up and restored to it; he provided that, besides the twelve canons of the cathedral, there should be twenty priests to say masses for the repose of his soul; and he bequeathed to the Athenian minster, for their support and for the maintenance of its noble fabric, the city of Athens, with its dependencies, and all the brood-mares of his valuable stud. Seldom has a church received such a remarkable endowment; the Cathedral of Monaco, built out of the earnings of a gaming-table, is perhaps the closest parallel to the Parthenon maintained by the profits of a stud-farm. Nerio made his favourite daughter, the Countess of Cephalonia, his principal heiress; to her he bequeathed his castles of Megara, Sikyon, and Corinth, while to his natural son, Antonio, he left the government of Thebes, Livadia, and all beyond it. To the bastard’s mother, Maria Rendi, daughter of the ever-serviceable Greek notary who had been so prominent in the last years of the Catalan domination, and had retained his position under the new dynasty, her lover granted the full franchise, with the right to retain all her property, including, perhaps, the spot between Athens and the Piræus which still preserves the name of her family. Finally, he recommended his land to the care of the Venetian Republic, which he begged to protect his heiress and to carry out his dispositions for the benefit of Our Lady of Athens. Donato Acciajuoli made no claim to succeed his brother in the Duchy of Athens. He was Gonfaloniere of Florence and Senator of Rome; and he preferred those safe and dignified positions in Italy to the glamour of a ducal coronet in Greece, in spite of the natural desire of the family that one of their name should continue to take his title from Athens[106]. But it was obvious that a conflict would arise between the sons-in-law of the late duke, for Nerio had practically disinherited his elder daughter in favour of her younger but abler sister. Carlo Tocco of Cephalonia at once demanded the places bequeathed to his wife, occupied Megara and Corinth, and imprisoned the terrified executors in his island till they had signed a document stating that he had carried out the terms of his father-in-law’s will. Theodore Palaiologos, who contended that Corinth had always been intended to be his after Nerio’s death, besieged it with a large force, till Tocco, calling in a still larger Turkish army, drove his brother-in-law from the Isthmus[107].