Arianiti

The Arianiti were an Albanian noble family whose lands covered the Shkumbin valley and the Via Egnatia in central Albania. Alexius Arianiti, the first securely attested medieval member, swore allegiance to Charles I of Naples in 1274. From the fourteenth century the family also used the surname Komneni.

The family's greatest figure, Gjergj Arianiti, won victories over Ottoman armies from 1430, and his kin joined the League of Lezhe in 1444. The family left in 1450, but Skanderbeg married Gjergj's daughter Donika in 1451. Another daughter, Angelina, married the Serbian despot Stefan Brankovic and was later venerated as a saint.

As the Ottomans closed in, some Arianiti converted to Islam and entered Ottoman service, while the sons of Gjergj's Italian marriage withdrew to Italy. The male line died out in the mid-sixteenth century.