ALEXIUS I COMNENUS, Emperor of Byzantium. – He reigned from 1081 to 1118. He belonged to a feudal family originally from Comne in Thrace, but transplanted to Asia Minor; his uncle Isaac had already been emperor from 1057 to 1059, but had been unable to retain power because of the opposition of the Byzantine bureaucratic aristocracy. The situation of the empire at the accession of Alexius was grave: Anatolia had been invaded by the Turks, and the possessions in Italy had been conquered by the Normans, who, at the very beginning of his reign, landed on the Albanian coast with the programme of occupying Macedonia and the entire empire. Alexius succeeded in securing the alliance of Venice, at the cost of grave commercial concessions, which gave the Venetians commercial predominance in the Levant. In 1085 the death of Robert Guiscard put an end to the Norman danger. It was time to turn to the Seljuk Turks, who had established the sultanate of Rum at Iconium, but the sudden invasion of the barbarian Petchenegs in Thrace endangered the very existence of the empire. An alliance with the tribe of the Polovtsi (or Cumans) enabled Alexius to destroy them (1091).
In these grave dangers Alexius had had to resume negotiations with the Holy See to put an end to the schism of Michael Cerularius. The emperor aimed to remove every difficulty in order to obtain military aid from the princes of the West. The negotiations lasted a long time, from 1088 to 1095, and are connected with the appearance of an imperial embassy at the Council of Piacenza, where Urban II championed the cause of Byzantine and Eastern Christendom in general. Thus, between the Council of Piacenza and that of Clermont, the plan of the crusade matured. There were, however, apparently no direct negotiations between the Pope and Alexius: the appearance of the crusader princes on the Bosphorus was a new fact that forced the emperor to define his position. The crusade was now based on the conclusion of a foedus between the empire and the princes, who bound themselves, in order to receive aid, to recognize Alexius’ rights over all territories that might be reconquered from the infidels. Relations between Alexius and the crusaders were cordial until the siege of Antioch, but the unlawful occupation of that city by Bohemond, and the delays of Alexius, who had halted in Anatolia to fight the Turks, led, in the summer of 1098, to an open breach with the crusaders, who resumed their expedition without further regard for the Byzantine empire. Hence arose the legend of the emperor as a liar and oath-breaker, examined and refuted by recent studies. In reality, Alexius continued to favour the crusaders in various ways; relations were difficult only with Bohemond of Antioch, who, among other things, in 1108 attempted a landing at Durazzo and the conquest of Macedonia, but without result. Alexius had, in any case, succeeded in saving the Byzantine empire even from this crisis. His last years were occupied with internal reorganization and struggles with the Turks.
ALESSIO: de’ FALCONIERI: V. SETTE FONDATORI DELL'ORD.
ALESSIO: da SALÒ: V. SEGALA, ALESSIO DA SALÒ.