Benedetto Zaccaria

Benedetto Zaaccaria was Genoese merchant, diplomat, and admiral who built an empire of shipping, mining, and trading interests.

In 1264 Zaccaria became Genoese ambassador to the Byzantine emperor, Michael VIII Paleologus (1223 – 1282). The emperor bestowed on him and his brother Manuele the fief of Phocaea, north of Smyrna, with its alum mines. Alum, that was used as a fixative for dyes and was essential to the burgeoning textile industries of western Europe, became the foundation of a commercial empire, trading in North Africa, Spain, France, Flanders, Constantinople, and the Black Sea. Benedetto was also granted monopoly over the cultivation of mastic, an aromatic gum much appreciated by women in the Near East for whitening teeth and freshening breath, on the Aegean island of Chios.

In 1284 Zaccaria returned to Genoa and took command of a fleet that blockaded Pisa’s Tyrrhenian port, the Porto Pisano, a naval maneuver that led to Pisa’s committing its fleet to combat. Zaccaria’s tactics produced a Genoese victory from which Pisa never recovered. Subsequently he served as admiral to Sancho IV of Castile (r. 1284- 1285) and to Philip IV of France (r. 1285 – 1314).