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The Ventimiglia are a noble Italian family that once held fiefdoms in Liguria, France, Spain and Southern Italy.
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Origin
The Ventimiglia family originated from Cono/Corrado Count of Ventimiglia (10th-11th century), son of Count Cono, likely Count palatine of Vienne, Isère (an Alemannian-Franconian Conradines). Enrico II de Ventimiglia, Count del Maro (Albenga) married around 1250 Isabella/Elisabetta, countess of Geraci (Sicily), establish a new branch in the Hohenstaufen Kingdom of Sicily.
The counts of Geraci derive by the union of Serlone II d'Hauteville, a godson and relative of Ruggero Gran Count of Sicily, and his wife Lady Isabella. This marital union gave origin to the ancestors of Ventimiglia line, the possibles successors of Serlon were: Eliusa, Rinaldo di Bernaville, Rocca di Bernaville, Ruggero I de Creon count of Ischia and Geraci, Guerrera de Creon countess, Ruggero II count of Ischia and Geraci, Aldoino count, Isabella who married Count Enrico II of Ventimiglia son of count Filippo I of Ventimiglia and del Maro. The French branch uses de Vintimille and the Spanish branch uses de Veintimilla, Vintemilla or Veintimiglia (branch of Màlaga).
Another branch, the Lascaris (di Ventimiglia) Conti di Tenda, is descended in female line from the Laskaris of the Empire of Nicaea through the marriage in 1261 of Guglielmo Pietro I, Conte di Ventimiglia, Signore de Tenda (d. 1282) with Eudokia Laskarina (1248–1311), daughter of Emperor Theodore II Laskaris and wife Princess Elena of Bulgaria.
Eudokia was born in Nicaea about 1248, the fourth daughter of Theodoros II Doukas Laskaris, emperor of Byzantium, and Elena of Bulgaria. She grew up as a princess at the court of Nicaea, where Costanza 'Anna' von Hohenstaufen, widow of Eudokia's grandfather Ioannes III Doukas, emperor in Nicaea, also lived. After the Palaiologan usurpation of the imperial throne, both ladies fled, travelling from Constantinople to Tende and Sicily, and years later both sought protection at the kingdom of Aragón under King Jaime I 'the Conqueror'.
Soon after the re-conquest of Constantinople in 1261, Michael VIII Palaiologos, until then regent and co-emperor for the infant Ioannes IV Laskaris, had himself declared sole emperor, solidifying his position by having Ioannes IV blinded and imprisoned. Ioannes' three sisters, Eudokia among them, were hurriedly married off to foreigners, so that their descendants could not lay claim to the imperial succession.
The young Eudokia was married in Constantinople in July 1261 to Guglielmo Pietro de Tenda, count of Ventimiglia et Tende, son of Guglielmo III. Tende was a Ligurian region then at the service of Genoa, allies of Michael VIII. This marriage originated the powerful house Lascaris de Vintimille, which stood until the 19th century. Eudokia and Guglielmo Pietro had several children of whom Giovanni I and Lascara/Lucretia would have progeny.
Eudokia fled from Liguria to Aragón with her children. Some sources say the cause was her husband's death, others that she had been rejected by him. Living at Xàtiva, Saragossa and Castella, Eudokia travelled on diplomatic missions for Jaime II 'the Just', king of Aragón, who succeeded his brother Alfonso III in 1291. In 1296 she founded a convent of the Order of Poor Ladies and the sanctuary of Mare de Déu de la Serra at Montblanc, which she entered by the end of 1306. She also donated an Italian image of the Virgin to the convent. The image can still be seen there. She died in Saragossa in 1311, and her remains rest at the Dominican monastery there.