The Great Coat of Arms of the Russian Empire, as presented to Emperor
Paul I in October 1800. The use of the
double-headed eagle in the coat of arms (seen in multiple locations here) goes back to the 15th century. With the
fall of Constantinople and the end of the
Byzantine Empire in 1453, the Grand Dukes of
Muscovy came to see themselves as the successors of the Byzantine heritage, a notion reinforced by the marriage of
Ivan III to
Sophia Paleologue. Ivan adopted the golden Byzantine double-headed eagle in his seal, first documented in 1472, marking his direct claim to the Roman imperial heritage and his assertion as sovereign equal and rival to the
Holy Roman Empire.