Constantine Palaiologos (1405–1453), the last Roman Emperor, arrived in the Peloponnese at Aigio in 1427, having come from Constantinople. As Despot of the region, with his seat at Kalavryta, he liberated the whole of the Peloponnese from two centuries of Frankish rule. After spending sixteen years in region, he established his seat as Despot, and from 1449 he reigned as Roman emperor in Constantinople.

📸 The only surviving portrait of the legendary Emperor Constantine Palaiologos, painted during his lifetime, was discovered in 2024 in the katholikon of the Old Monastery of the Taxiarchs in Aigialeia, about 15 kilometres from Aigio, during conservation work on its Late Byzantine wall paintings, and it demonstrates his close connection with the region.