[1][2] She was the daughter of Nicholas III Zorzi, the titular margrave of Bodonitsa, and renowned for her beauty.
After Nerio's death, she secured her right to act as guardian of her son and thereby regent of the Duchy and had the Ottomans consent to it.
Not long after she came to power, she fell in love with the Venetian Bartolomeo Contarini, who visited Athens, and asked him to propose to her.
Evidently, the citizenry mistrusted the two lovers' influence over the young duke, for whose safety they may have feared.
According to legend, the murder took place in the monastery of Daphni, the mausoleum of the French dukes, where he cut off her head himself while she knelt invoking the aid of the Holy Virgin, but this is a fictionalized version from a folk lore of the murder.