Ivan III, Grand Duke of Moscow and All Russia

IVAN III, Grand Duke of Moscow and All Russia. - The name of this sovereign is identified with Russia's rise at the turn of the fifteenth to the sixteenth century. Born on 22 January 1440, died in 1505. He married the niece of the last Byzantine emperor Constantine, Sophia Palaiologina: in this way, in the eyes of his compatriots, he transformed Moscow into the heir of Byzantium, initiating a policy of great power and "hints" of thought that, in the nineteenth century, would form the basis of Slavophile ideology.

The Pontiff had consented to the marriage of the Catholic Sophia, hoping for a Catholic penetration into Moscow; but the wish proved unrealistic because Sophia became Orthodox. I. emphasized the concept that the land inhabited by the Russians is "our legitimate patrimony, transmitted to us by right from our ancestors" (especially in polemic with the Poles and Lithuanians). He tightened treaties and ties of culture and friendship with Venice, Hungary, Austria and Denmark. Italian artists and engineers were called to Russia, in a political and spiritual climate increasingly interested in the life and civilization of the West (which in some respects was beginning to be imitated).