Theodora Doukaina Selvo


Theodora Doukaina was a Byzantine princess and dogaressa.

Life

She was the second daughter of Byzantine emperor Constantine X Dukas and his second wife Eudokia Makrembolitissa. After 1071 she became the wife of Domenico Selvo, Doge of Venice, who received the title of protoproedros at the occasion.
As she is mentioned as alive in the work of Michael Psellos, it is assumed she died after this last date. It is not known if she had children, and she is not mentioned otherwise.

Confusion with Maria Argyropoulaina

, the Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, wrote a chapter entitled "De Veneti ducis uxore quae prius nimium delicata, demum toto corpore computruit" about an unnamed Byzantine princess whose manners he considered scandalously lavish and which brought to her a horrible death as a divine punishment.
This woman has been mistakenly identified with Domenico Selvo's wife by later Venetian chroniclers followed afterwards by various modern authors; 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.

Works confusing Theodora and Maria