Guy Pallavicini

Guy or Guido Pallavicini, called Marchesopoulo by his Greek subjects,[1] was the first marquess of Bodonitsa in Frankish Greece from 1204 to his death in or shortly after 1237.

Guido hailed from a distinguished family of Lombardy in northern Italy, that ruled over a series of fiefs in the area between Parma, Piacenza, and Cremona.

Guy made the nearby settlement of Bodonitsa (modern Mendenitsa) his seat, erecting a castle on the ruins of an ancient acropolis, probably that of Pharygai, which gave wide sight over the coastal plain around the Malian Gulf.

[3] The exact bounds of the marquisate are unknown, but it lay between the northern boundaries of the Duchy of Athens and the town of Zetouni (modern Lamia), which was partially owned by Guy.

The Lombard barons favoured Demetrius' older half-brother, William VI, Marquess of Montferrat, but were opposed by the Latin Emperor, Henry of Flanders (r. 1205–1216).

Urgent calls for a crusade were made in the West, under the leadership of William VI of Montferrat, but in the event, only a small vanguard under the former regent, Count Oberto II of Biandrate, arrived at Thessalonica in summer 1222.

[12] These events rendered Guy's small fief into a true border march between the Latin states of southern Greece and the territories recovered by the Greeks to the north.

Some aid was provided—some 1300 hyperpyra were gathered by the clergy alone—but Bodonitsa was saved more through her strong fortifications and the belated arrival of the crusade meant to relieve Thessalonica.