Nerio I Acciaioli

Nerio I Acciaioli or Acciajuoli served as the de facto Duke of Athens from 1385 to 1388 and ruled uncontested until his death in 1394. Born into a family of Florentine bankers, he became the principal agent of his influential kinsman Niccolò Acciaioli in Frankish Greece in 1360. He acquired extensive estates in the Principality of Achaea, which he administered independently of the absent princes. In 1374 or 1375, he hired mercenaries and captured Megara, a strategically significant fortress within the Catalan-ruled Duchy of Athens. His forces invaded the duchy again in 1385, driving back the Catalans to the Acropolis, which they were ultimately compelled to surrender in 1388.