APPENDIX 557 concessions obtained by Xieholas Acciajoli in the grants he received from Catherine of Valois. He was invested vrith. the power of mortgaging, exchang- ing, and selling his fiefs, without any previous authorisation from his suzerain. Nicholas acted as principal minister of Catherine during a residence of three years in the Morea ; and he made use of his {X)sition. like a prudent banker, to obtain considerable grants of territory. He returned to Italy in 1341 and never again visited Greece ; but his estates in Achaia were administered by his relations and other members of the banking house at Florence, many of whom obtained considerable fiefs for themselves through his influence. ' ■ Nicholas Acciajoli was appointed hereditary grand seneschal of the kingdom of Naples by queen Jeanne, whom he accompanied in her flight to Provence when she was driven from her kingdom by Louis of Hungary. On her return he received the rich country of Amalfi, as a reward for his fidelity, and subse- quently Malta was added to liis possessions. He was an able statesman and a keen political intriguer ; and he was almost the first example of the superior position the purse of the moneyed citizen was destined to assiime over the sword of the feudal baron and the learning of the politic churchman. Nicholas Accia- joli was the first of that banking aristocracy which has since held an imixn-tant position in European history. He was the tyjx; of a class destined at times to decide the fate of kingdoms and at times to arrest the progress of armies. He certainly deserved to have his life written by a man of genius, but his supercili- ousness and assumption of princely state, even in his intercourse with the friends of his youth, disgusted Boccaccio, who alone of Florentine contemporaries could have left a vivid sketch of the career which raised him from the partner of a banking-house to the rank of a great feudal baron and to live in the companion- ship of kings. Boccaccio, offended by his insolence, seems not to have appre- ciated his true importance as the type of a coming age and a new state of society ; and the indignant and satirical record he has left of the pride and presumption of the mercantile noble is by no means a correct portrait of the NeajjoUtan minister. Yet even Boccaccio records in his usual truthful manner that Nicholas had dispersed powerful armies, though he imjustly depreciates the merit of the success, because the victory was gained by combinations effected by gold, and not by the headlong charge of a line of lances. [Boccaccio dedicated his Donne illuatri to Niccolo's sister Andrea, the countess of Monte Oderisio.] " Nicholas Acciajoli obtained a grant of the barony and hereditary governor- ship of the fortress of Corinth in the year 1358. He was already in possession of the castles of Vulcano [at IthomeJ Piadha near Epidauros, and large estates in other parts of the Peloponnesus. He died in 1365 ; ^ and his sons Angelo and Robert succeeded in turn to the barony and government of Corinth. Angelo mortgaged Corinth to his relative [second cousin], Nerio Acciajoli, who already- possessed fiefs in Achaia, and who took up his residence at Corinth on account of the political and military importance of the fortress as well as to enable him to administer the revenues of the barony in the most profitable manner. " Nerio Acciajoli, though he held the governorship of Corinth only as the deputy of his relation, and the barony only in security of a debt, was nevertheless, from his abiUty, enterprising character, great wealth, and extensive connexions, one of the most influential barons of Achaia ; and, from the disorderly state of the principality he was enabled to act as an independent prince." "The Catalans were the constant rivals of the Franks of Achaia, and Nerio Acciajoli, as governor of Corinth, was the guardian of the principality against their hostile projects. The marriage of the young countess of Salona [whose father Count Lewis died 1382] involved the two parties in war. The mother of the bride was a Greek lady ; she betrothed her daughter to Simeon [Stephen Ducas], son of the prince of Yallachian Thessalv ; and the Catalans, with the two 1 [There is a great memorial of Niccolo at Florence, the Gothic Certosa San Lorenzo. Gregorovius calls it " the first monument of historical relations between Florence and Greece"; for just as Pisa used her revenue from Constantinople to build her cathedral, Niccolo devoted moneys from Greece to build San Lorenzo. His tomb is to be seen in a subterranean chapel.]
