[3] According to a passage considered to be an interpolation in the history of Laonikos Chalkokondyles, he had accused his mother Theodora of having an affair with an unnamed protovestarios, whom he killed, then held his parents captive in the citadel until the palace staff released them.
[4] Sometime after marrying Bagrationi, John left Georgia for Caffa, where he sought to charter a large galley and its crew.
[5] Their daughter Theodora Komnene was betrothed to Uzun Hassan of Ak Koyunlu in 1457, whom she married the next year.
These terms included: a dowry of properties in the villages of Halanik and Sesera; a "bride-price" in that Uzun Hassan would extend some kind of effort to help defend Trebizond; Theodora's right to continue to profess the Christian faith, keep a chaplain, and act as protector of Christians subject to Uzun Hassan; and "as it turned out, Theodora's considerable (and probably unusual) right to influence Akkoyunlu foreign relations" Theodora's tomb in Diyarbekir was shown to an Italian visitor in 1507.
Pero Tafur, in his travel memoirs, records that when he visited Trebizond in 1438 John IV had a Turkish wife.