Consort: | yes |
Andronika Arianiti | |
Lady of Albania | |
More: | no |
Reign: | 1451-1468 |
Predecessor: | Voisava Kastrioti (as Lady of Mat) |
Successor: | Theodora Muzaka |
Succession: | Lady of Albania |
Spouse: | Skanderbeg |
Spouse-Type: | Spouse |
Issue: | Gjon Kastrioti II |
Full Name: | Andronika Arianiti Comninata |
House: | Arianiti (paternally) Muzaka (maternally) Kastrioti (by marriage) |
Father: | Gjergj Arianiti |
Mother: | Maria Muzaka |
Birth Date: | 1428 |
Birth Place: | Kaninë, Ottoman Empire (modern day Albania) |
Death Date: | 1506 (Aged 78) |
Death Place: | Valencia, Kingdom of Valencia (modern day Spain) |
Burial Place: | Royal Monastery of the Holy Trinity |
Religion: | Eastern Orthodoxy |
Andronika "Donika" Arianiti, commonly known as Donika Kastrioti, (1428 – 1506) was an Albanian noblewoman and Grand Princess of Albania from her marriage to Skanderbeg. She was the daughter of Gjergj Arianiti, an earlier leader in the ongoing revolt against the Ottomans, and Maria Muzaka, whose family ruled under the title of despots in the southern part of the country.
Donika was born in Kaninë, in 1428. Her father, Gjergj Arianiti was a member of the Arianiti family whose domain stretched across the Shkumbin valley and the old Via Egnatia road and reached to the east today's Bitola. Her mother, Maria Muzaka was a member of the Muzaka family whose domain was the Myzeqe region.
A month after the Treaty of Gaeta, on 21 April 1451, Skanderbeg married Donika, and thus strengthened the ties with the Arianiti family, in the Eastern Orthodox Ardenica Monastery,[1] [2] in Lushnje, present-day southwestern Albania. Later her sister Angelina married Serbian ruler Stefan Branković. She is venerated as a saint in the Serbian Orthodox Church.[3]
After the Ottoman conquest of Albania, the Kastriotis were given peerage in the Kingdom of Naples. They obtained a feudal domain, the Duchy of San Pietro in Galatina and the County of Soleto (Province of Lecce, Italy). Gjon Kastrioti II, Donika's and Skanderbeg's only child, married Jerina Branković, the daughter of Lazar Branković, Despot of Serbia.