Ghisolfi

De Ghisolfi (also known as de Guizolfi, de Gisolfi, Guigursis, Guilgursis and Giexulfis) was the name of a Genoese-Jewish family prominent in the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance.

In 1419, the Genoese Jew Simeone de Ghisolfi married a reigning princess of the municipality of Tmutarakan on the Taman Peninsula named Bikhakhanim, and took possession of this area, most likely centered on the town of Matrega. The de Ghisolfi clan ruled this principality as a protectorate of the Genoese consulate of Gazaria for much of the 15th century.

In 1453, the Republic of Genoa ceded its Crimean possessions to the Bank of St. George, a private enterprise to which it was heavily in debt. The Ghisolfi family continued to rule Matrega and the surrounding region on behalf of the Bank. Through such intermediaries as Khozi Kokos, they maintained relations with the rulers of Muscovy and other Russian principalities.

A descendant of Simeone, Zacharias de Ghisolfi was the prince and ruler of the Taman peninsula from about 1480. Beset by the Ottoman Empire (which was then in the process of reducing the Girai Khanate and the Italian possessions in the Crimea to tributary status) in 1482, Zacharias and his subjects, a mixed population of Jews, Italians, Greeks, Circassians, Tatars and Slavs, were compelled to retire from Matrega and sought refuge on the island of Matrice. On August 12 of that year, Zacharias informed the directors of the Bank of Saint George in Genoa of his position, and requested for 1,000 ducats with which to retain the friendship of his allies, the Crimean Goths of Feodoro, who had exhausted his resources; he stated that unless he received the support of the republic, he would move to Wallachia, where the voivode had offered him a castle.

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