Maria Komnene (daughter of Alexios IV)
Empress consort of the Byzantine Empire
Maria Megale Komnene (Greek: Μαρία Μεγάλη Κομνηνή; 1404 – 17 December 1439), known as Maria of Trebizond (Greek: Μαρία της Τραπεζούντος), was Byzantine Empress by marriage to the Byzantine emperor John VIII Palaiologos (r. 1425–1448). She was the last crowned Byzantine empress.
She was one of the daughters of Alexios IV of Trebizond and Theodora Kantakouzene.
Life
In September 1427, Maria was married to John VIII Palaiologos by Patriarch Joseph II in Constantinople, having arrived by ship from Trebizond on the last day of August; the connection had been negotiated through ambassadors sent from Constantinople the previous year. The Ecthesis Chronica calls her Maria Katakouzene (Katakouzene was a variant of Kantakouzene) and extols her exceptional beauty which caused John VIII to love her dearly.
Bertrandon de la Brocquière, who saw her in Constantinople in 1432, likewise praised her beauty stating, "I should not have had a fault to find with her had she not been painted, and assuredly she had not any need of it."
The Spanish traveller Pero Tafur met Maria in November 1437 when he visited Constantinople and gave a glimpse into her daily life. During his stay at Constantinople, Tafur found she often went hunting in the adjacent countryside, either alone or with the Emperor. He adds that he met her elder brother, Alexander, in that city, where he lived "in exile with his sister, the empress, and they say that his relations with her are dishonest." When Pero Tafur returned to Constantinople a few months later, he asked to be shown the Hagia Sophia; his hosts included not only the Despot Constantine but Maria and her brother Alexander, all of whom had wanted to hear Mass there.
Maria's marriage with John lasted twelve years but resulted in no children.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q458536. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1404, 1439, 1425 and 1448.
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This entry incorporates text from “Maria Komnene (daughter of Alexios IV)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.