Sophia Palaiologina, niece of Constantine XI
Queen Isabella of Spain
"The parallelism between Isabella Católica and Sophia Palaiologina is one of the most fascinating historical exercises of the 15th century.
Both were contemporaries, women of iron will and, above all, the "architects" of two empires that considered themselves heirs to a sacred mission.
Both queens were key figures for their husbands (Ferdinand of Aragon and Ivan III of Russia) to take the definitive step toward total sovereignty:
Isabella culminated the Reconquista with the capture of Granada (1492), ending centuries of Islamic presence.
Sophia was the one who instigated Ivan III to stop paying tribute to the Golden Horde (the Mongols).
There is a legend that Sophia told her husband that "she had not married a slave of the Tatars," which led to the end of the Mongol yoke.
Both used religion and history to legitimize their empires as the true successors of Christendom:
Isabella (The New Rome of the West), under her reign, Spain became the armed arm of Catholicism, extending the faith to the New World.
Sophia (The Third Rome), being the niece of the last Byzantine emperor (Constantine XI), Sophia brought to Moscow the protocol, the double-headed eagle, and the idea that, after the fall of Constantinople (the Second Rome), Moscow was the Third Rome.
She transformed a principality into a Tsardom (Caesar).Not sure she was the one responsible, but she probably contributed]
Both queens elevated the cultural level of their kingdoms by importing foreign talent:
Isabella fostered the Renaissance in Spain, bringing humanists like Antonio de Nebrija and supporting an architecture that blended the Gothic with the new (Isabelline style).
Sophia was responsible for bringing Italian architects to Moscow (such as Aristotle Fioravanti), who rebuilt the Kremlin and designed the Cathedral of the Dormition, giving Moscow its current imperial appearance.
Modern historians often emphasize that both defended the two flanks of Europe:
Isabella on the western extreme against the Kingdom of Granada and the Ottoman advance in the Mediterranean, and Sophia on the eastern, consolidating an Orthodox Russia that would serve as a bulwark against the powers of the east"
https://x.com/trastamara_ana/status/2009300897013145711
