Theodora Doukaina Selvo
Template:Short description Theodora Doukaina (Template:Langx), renamed Anna (1058– after 1075Template:Sfn), was a Byzantine princess and dogaressa.
Life
Born in Constantinople, Theodora Doukaina was the second daughter of Byzantine emperor Constantine X Doukas by his second wife, Eudokia Makrembolitissa.Template:Sfn[1] After 1071 she became the wife of Domenico Selvo, Doge of Venice, who received the title of protoproedros at the occasion.Template:Sfn
As she is mentioned as alive in the work of Michael Psellos (1075), it is assumed she died after this last date.Template:Sfn It is not known if she had children, and she is not mentioned otherwise.Template:Sfn
Confusion with Maria Argyropoulina
Peter Damian, the Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, wrote a chapter entitled "De Veneti ducis uxore quae prius nimium delicata, demum toto corpore computruit" ("Of the Venetian Doge's wife, whose body, after her excessive delicacy, entirely rotted away.") about an unnamed Byzantine princess whose manners[2] he considered scandalously lavish and which brought to her a horrible death as a divine punishment.Template:Sfn
This woman has been mistakenly (since Damian died 1072) identified with Domenico Selvo's wife by later Venetian chroniclers (incl. Andrea Dandolo and Marino Sanuto the Younger) followed afterwards by various modern authors;[3] however since the work in which Damianus' chapter is contained is dated ca 1059 it refers probably to Maria Argyropoulaina who had died a half century before.[4]Template:Sfn[5]
Notes
Bibliography
- Template:Polemis-The Doukai
- Hodgson, Francis Cotterell. The Early History of Venice: From the Foundation to the Conquest of Constantinople, A.D. 1204. G. Allen, 1901. pp. 191–192 ([1])
- Template:Byzantium and Venice: A Study in Diplomatic and Cultural Relations
Works confusing Theodora and Maria
- Henisch, Bridget Ann (1976), Fast and Feast: Food in Medieval Society Template:ISBN
- Staley, Edgcumbe (c1910), The Dogaressas of Venice
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ "she scorned even to wash herself in common water, obliging her servants instead to collect the dew that fell from the heavens for her to bathe in. Nor did she deign to touch her food with her fingers, but would command her eunuchs to cut it up into small pieces, which she would impale on a certain golden instrument with two prongs and thus carry to her mouth. Her rooms, too, were so heavy with incense and various perfumes (...)" (Damianus as cited by Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".)
- ↑ such as Romanin (Storia documentata di Venezia), Molmenti (la Dogaressa), Staley (The Dogaressas of Venice), Kretschmayr, Henisch (Fast and Feast: Food in Medieval Society), Pertusi (Venezia e Bisanzio) etc
- ↑ Hodgson, p.192
- ↑ Nicol, pp.46-47