Background
Donika was born in Kaninë, in 1428. Her father was Gjergj Arianiti, 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.
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Donika Kastrioti
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Career
Donika is known as the spouse of George Kastrioti Skanderbeg. Her mother was Maria Muzaka, of the Muzaka family, whose domain was the Myzeqe region. A month after the Treaty of Gaeta (in which Skanderbeg became a vassal of Alfonso the Magnanimous in exchange for military aid), on 21 April 1451, Skanderbeg married Donika, and thus strengthened the ties with the Arianiti"s, in the Eastern Orthodox Ardenica Monastery, in Fier, present-day southwestern Albania.
After the Ottoman conquest of Albania, the Kastrioti"s 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 Irene Branković Palaiologina, the daughter of Lazar Branković, Despot of Serbia.
