Maria of Serbia or Marija Branković ( sr, Марија Бранковић, b. 1466 - d. 27 August 1495) was Princess of
Serbia
Serbia (, ; Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe, Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Bas ...
by birth, and
Marchioness of Montferrat by marriage. She was regent of Montferrat during the minority of her son in 1494-1495.
She was daughter of
despot Stefan Branković
Stefan Branković ( sr-Cyrl, Стефан Бранковић; c. 1417 – 9 October 1476), also known in historiography as Stefan the Blind (Стефан Слепи), was briefly the despot (ruler) of the Serbian Despotate between 1458 and 1459, m ...
of Serbia and
Angelina, despotess of Serbia. In 1485, she married
Boniface III, Marquess of Montferrat
Boniface III Palaeologus (10 August 1426 – 1494) was Marquis of Montferrat from 1483 until his death.
Biography
He was the son of marquis John Jacob and Joanna of Savoy. He succeeded his brother William VIII who had got involved in the War of ...
.
Biography
Since 1459, when Serbia fell under Ottoman rule, Maria′s father,
Despot Stefan
Branković, was living in exile, mainly in northern Italy, where Maria was born in 1466. In 1485, she was married to Boniface III
Palaiologos
The House of Palaiologos ( Palaiologoi; grc-gre, Παλαιολόγος, pl. , female version Palaiologina; grc-gre, Παλαιολογίνα), also found in English-language literature as Palaeologus or Palaeologue, was a Byzantine Greek f ...
,
marquess of Montferrat
The Marquises and Dukes of Montferrat were the rulers of a territory in Piedmont south of the Po and east of Turin called Montferrat. The March of Montferrat was created by Berengar II of Italy in 950 during a redistribution of power in the no ...
, who fell ill in 1493, and Maria became regent. Boniface died in 1494, and his widow continued to act as regent since their sons were still minor. Maria died in 1495.
Maria and Boniface had two sons:
William IX (1486-1518), who became Marquess of Montferrat between 1494 and 1518, and
John George (1488-1533) who became the last Marquess of Montferrat, between 1530 and 1533.
References
Sources
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Ancestry
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maria of Serbia
1466 births
1495 deaths
Branković dynasty
Marchionesses of Montferrat
15th-century women rulers