Son of King Charles II of Naples, Philip thus inherited the suzerain rights over the colonies of Frankish Greece acquired by his grandfather Charles I. He began his career as Prince of Taranto in 1294, but that year married Thamar of Epiros, heiress to the eponymous despotate, showing clear ambitions for rule in the East; he campaigned twice against Epiros from Corfu after his father-in-law's death in 1296 and in the Morea in 1306. This perhaps prepared the way for his appointment as Prince of Achaia in 1307 at the hands of his father, in succession to the deposed Philip of Savoy, but the greater proximity to his wife's inheritance lost value with their divorce in 1309. In 1313, Philip instead married Catherine of Valois, titular heiress to the Latin Empire of Constantinople. Attempts to raise a Crusade to recover his wife's inheritance were unsuccessful and towards the end of 1313 Philip resigned rule of Achaia to Louis of Burgundy and returned to Italy, where he died in 1331.

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