The Late Byzantine mosaic scheme of the Church of the Holy Apostles in Salonika, executed around 1315, display brilliant color, graceful forms, and decorative richness.

After taking the border fortresses, Dushan penetrates deep into imperial territory to the gates of Salonika, although he does not achieve lasting success in subduing the cities.

He makes peace with Emperor Andronikos in August 1334, having extended the territories of his state close to what is today the northern border of Greece.

The declining Empire, with Andronikos dead, once more falls prey to family quarrels and civil war.

Dushan, arriving before the gates of Salonika, receives an unexpected ally in Kantakouzenos, who takes up arms against the regents of the young successor, and …

The revolutionary movement in the shrinking domains of the empire is most memorable and lasting in Thessalonica, where a faction known as the Zealots has seized power in a coup d'état and governs the city as an almost independent commune until 1350.

The junior emperor John V will rule in Thessalonica after 1351.

Andronikos Palaiologos is a son of Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos and his wife Helena Dragaš.

His maternal grandfather was the Serb prince Constantine Dragaš.

His brothers include emperors John VIII Palaiologos and Constantine XI Palaiologos, as well as Theodore II Palaiologos, Demetrios Palaiologos and Thomas Palaiologos, who rule as despots in the Morea.

In childhood, Andronikos had survived the sickness that had killed his older brother Constantine and two sisters.

He has never recovered in full and will remain n poor health for the rest of his life, eventually developing leprosy.

When he was only eight years old his father had made him a despot (despotēs) and appointed him imperial representative in Thessalonica, where he succeeded his deceased cousin John VII Palaiologos.

As he was still a minor, for the first years of his rule there, until about 1415/1416, he was under the tutorship of the general Demetrios Laskaris Leontares.

After John VIII assumes control of the imperial government in 1421, the Empire faces an increasingly hostile Ottoman Empire.

Constantinople had been attacked in 1422 by the Ottomans.

Although the Turks had lifted the siege of Constantinople, Murad's armies had invaded Greece and in 1422–1423 subjected Thessalonica to a long blockade in 1422–1423.

Under siege, and increasingly unwell, Andronikos had begun diplomatic initiatives for the surrender of the city to the Republic of Venice.

Although he does not have the support of the whole of the population, and is opposed by the church, which mistrusts the Latins, these negotiations result in a Venetian force entering the city in 1423.

The handing over of Thessalonica to Venice contributes to the outbreak of the first in a series of wars between Venice and the Ottoman Empire.

An influx of twenty thousand Jews driven from Spain augments the population of Thessaloniki, which in 1430 had been severely reduced by the terrible massacre visited upon the city by Ottoman sultan Murad II.

They join their coreligionists in initiating a golden age of Ottoman Jewry that will last well into the seventeenth century (when Ottoman decline and the rising power of European diplomats and merchants will enable them to promote the interests of the sultan's Christian subjects at the expense of Muslims and Jews alike).

The city of Salonika has become one in which the Jews play a considerable role, the Ottomans’ invitation of the Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 having prevented the Greek element from dominating the city.

For the ensuing four centuries, the Sephardic Jews, Muslims and Greek Orthodox would remain the principal groups in the city.

The city, often called "Mother of Israel", is to remain the largest Jewish city in the world for at least two hundred years.

The Sephardim of Constantinople and Salonika are important links in international trade between the Mediterranean, Amsterdam and the East.

The Sabbatean crisis had lasted nearly a century, some of its aftereffects even longer.

It has led, for example, to the formation of sects whose members are externally converted to Islam—notably the Dönmeh (Turkish, “apostates”) of Salonika (whose descendants still live in Turkey).

The Dönmeh believe that the conversion of Sabbatai Zevi is a step in the fulfillment of the messianic prophecy.

They therefore have also converted from Judaism to Islam but secretly practice various Judaic rites.

Although they remain apart from the larger Jewish community, they preserve some knowledge of Hebrew, keep secret Hebrew names, forbid intermarriage with the Muslim population, and conduct their marriage and funeral rites in secret.

As the Dönmeh remain secretive and live in separate quarters, they are not generally noticed by the Muslims.

Internally they split into a number of subsects, reflecting social distinctions and disputes over the successors to Sabbatai.

A territorial issue of bitter and long-standing importance is the disposition of Macedonia, a territory in which every nationalist group in the Balkans claims a vital interest.

A revision in the Treaty of Berlin, which returns Macedonia in its entirety to the Ottoman Empire, allows it to keep its Christian administration.

Under the agreements made at the Congress of Berlin, western Rumelia is divided into the ils (provinces) of Edirne, Salonika, and ...

The komitadji's assassination of a Romanian professor opposed to the arguments of the commission and their capture of a female American missionary forces Austria and Russia to suggest reforms in the vilayets (administrative divisions) of Salonika, ...