Cleofa Malatesta

Cleofa Malatesta da Pesaro was an Italian noblewoman and the wife of Theodore II Palaiologos, Despot of the Morea, brother of Constantine XI, the last Byzantine emperor. She was a daughter of Malatesta dei Sonetti, Count of Pesaro, and Isabella Gonzaga. She married Theodore Palaiologos in Mystras on January 21, 1421, or sometime in 1422 in an arranged marriage that was part of an initiative of her uncle, Pope Martin V, to join Western with Orthodox nobility, who in this way hoped to gain political alliances against the Ottoman Turks.