Anna Diogenissa


Anna of Byzantium, also designated by some modern genealogists as Anna Diogenissa, was Grand Princess consort of Serbia, as wife of Uroš I, [Grand Prince of Serbia]. Her name is known only from late medieval Serbian genealogies, while her Byzantine origin was recorded by Italian chronicler Pietro Ranzano. Since Uroš I had several children, including sons Uroš II, Beloš and Desa, and also daughters Serbia, Queen of Hungary">Grand Principality of Serbia">Serbia, Queen of Hungary and Marija, Duchess of Znojmo, Anna is considered as their mother.

Life

Anna's name is recorded only in late medieval Serbian genealogies, which designate her as the wife of Bela Uroš, who is identified as the Grand Prince Uroš I. In later genealogies she is also designated as a French princess, but that is considered to be a very late addition, and thus rejected by scholars, since late medieval Italian chronicler Pietro Ranzano, who served at Hungarian court recorded in his "Epitome [rerum Hungarorum]" that the mother of Hungarian Queen Helena of Serbia was a niece by sister to the Byzantine emperor.
Trying to resolve those genealogical connections, some modern genealogists have suggested that Anna might have been a daughter of Byzantine princess Theodora, a sister of emperor Alexios I Komnenos, and her husband Constantine Diogenes (son of [Romanos IV)|Constantine Diogenes], a son of emperor Romanos [IV Diogenes], but several modern scholars have pointed out that such assumptions can't be proven with certainty, since no Anna is mentioned in Byzantine sources as a daughter of Theodora and Constantine.
It is not recorded when Anna married Uroš I, the Serbian Grand Prince, who reigned from ca. 1112 to 1145. It was assumed that the marriage took place during or after Urošʻs captivity in Byzantium, where he had been sent as a hostage by his uncle, Grand Prince Vukan of Serbia, following the capture of Lipljan in 1094 by the troops of Alexios I Komnenos.
Uroš had at least five children, presumably by Anna:
Some researchers have proposed that Zavida was also their son.