Maria Zaccaria

Princess consort of Achaea
Tenure	1396-1402
Princess Regnant of Achaea
Tenure	1402–1404

Died	after 1404
Spouse	Pedro de San Superano
Issue	unknown
House	Zaccaria
Father	Centurione I Zaccaria
Mother	Helene Asanina

Maria II Zaccaria Asanina (14th century – after 1404) was a Princess of Achaea.

She was daughter of Centurione I Zaccaria, Lord of Veligosti–Damala and Chalandritsa and his Byzantine wife Helene Asanina, sister of the Byzantine Empress Irene Asanina. Through her mother Maria descended from the imperial families of the Palaiologoi, Komnenoi, Angeloi. She married Pedro de San Superano the leader of the Navarrese Company from the year 1386 and the de facto ruler of Morea until 1402. After Pedro's death, Maria ruled the Principality as Princess in her own right for 2 years until her son coming to age.

Once she assumed power Maria appointed her ambitious nephew Centurione II Zaccaria -son of her brother Andronikos- as her bailee, a choice that ended up being the undoing of her reign. In the past Pedro had promised to the King of Naples Ladislaus 3.000 ducats in exchange for the title of the ruler of Morea, an amount of coins that he never paid. Ladislaus renewed his demands by asking Maria to bestow him the ducats immediately, something that also Maria didn't favored. Centurione acted secretly and dispatched a trusted person in Naples to inform Ladislaus that Maria and her children couldn't grant him the money but he himself was eager to pay them as long as he was recognized the only ruler of the Principality. Ladislaus accepted the unexpected offer of Centurione and declared the fall of Maria and her offsprings from the throne of Achaea.

In order to justify his decision, he argued that Maria and her son demonstrated a punishable audacity by not renewing the feudal oath of the Princes of Achaea to Naples. After her fall, Maria disappears from the historical record. During her brief reign, based on her epistolography it seems Maria was residing at the city of Patras, where we see her holding discussions with Venice about the appointment of a Venetian prelate.^[1]

References

Sources

Bon, Antoine (1969). La Morée franque. Recherches historiques, topographiques et archéologiques sur la principauté d'Achaïe [The Frankish Morea. Historical, Topographic and Archaeological Studies on the Principality of Achaea] (in French). Paris: De Boccard. OCLC 869621129.
Fine, John V. A. Jr. (1994) [1987]. The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-08260-4.
Setton, Kenneth M.; Hazard, Harry W., eds. (1975). A History of the Crusades, Volume III: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. Madison and London: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0-299-06670-3.
Thomopoulos, Stephanos (1999). Iστορία της Πόλεως Πατρών (in Greek). Patras: Achaikes Ekdoseis. ISBN 960-7960-09-2.
Topping, Peter (1975). "The Morea, 1364–1460". In Setton, Kenneth M.; Hazard, Harry W. (eds.). A History of the Crusades, Volume III: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. Madison and London: University of Wisconsin Press. pp. 141–166. ISBN 0-299-06670-3.

Regnal titles Preceded byPedro de San Superano Princess of Achaea 1402–1404 Succeeded byCenturione II Zaccaria

Princes of Achaea

Ruling princes
(1205–1432)

Champlitte	William I
Villehardouin	Geoffrey I Geoffrey II William II
Angevin (various houses)	Charles I Charles II Isabella with Florent and Philip I Philip II Ferdinand Matilda with Louis John Catherine Robert Maria I with Hugh Philip III Joanna with Otto James Charles III^‡ Ladislaus^‡
Navarrese-Genoese	Peter Maria II Centurione

Titular princes
(1642–1933)

Tocco	Antonio Carlo Antonio Leonardo Restaino Carlo Francesco Carlo
Capece Galeota	Carlo Maria Maddalena

^‡1383–1396: purely nominal control, Achaea de facto under the Navarrese Company