A Gallery of 30 Influential Women from the Middle Ages
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Sofia Palaiologina (died 1503), also known as Zoë Palaeologus, was a Byzantine princess and was a central figure in the European political system as she became a princess or tsarina of Russia through her marriage to Grand Prince Ivan III of Moscow (r. 1462-1505). This union marked a significant moment with the diplomatic connection between the Byzantine and Russian worlds, and strengthened the ties between Byzantine and Russian Orthodox churches. Sofia took great care introducing Byzantine traditions and customs to the court of Moscow. With the death of her husband, Sofia became regent for her son Vasily III (r. 1505-1533).
A forensic facial reconstruction of Sophia Palaiologina (Palaeologus) by Sergey Nikitin, 1994.
Original image by Sergey Nikitin. Uploaded by Liana Miate, published on 28 November 2023. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon a work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. When republishing on the web a hyperlink back to the original content source URL must be included. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.
