Francesco Morosini

Francesco Morosini (26 February 1619 – 16 January 1694) served as Doge of Venice from 1688 until his death, during the peak of the Great Turkish War. He came from the noble Morosini family, which produced many doges and generals.

Early career

His early career took off when he became Captain-General of Venetian forces on Crete during the Ottoman siege of Candia. After being forced to surrender the city, he faced accusations of cowardice and treason upon returning to Venice, but a brief trial cleared him. In 1685, as the Morean War began, Morosini took command of a fleet against the Ottomans. Over the following years, with help from Otto Wilhelm Königsmarck, he captured the Morea, along with Lefkada and parts of western Greece.

He briefly took Athens but could not hold it, and his siege of the former Venetian fortress of Negroponte failed. His reputation grew so much that he received the victory title Peloponnesiacus, and the Senate placed a bronze bust of him in the Great Hall while he was still alive—the first such honor for a Venetian citizen. The bust bore the inscription "Francisco Morosini Peloponnesiaco, adhuc viventi, Senatus."

Destruction of the Parthenon and loot of sculptures from Athens

During the Morean War, the Ottoman Army used the Parthenon as a gunpowder magazine. On September 26, 1687, a Venetian mortar scored a direct hit during the bombardment of Athens, igniting the stored powder and causing the worst destruction in the Parthenon’s history. An attaché of General Königsmarck wrote that the general was dismayed to destroy the ancient temple.

Morosini, however, described the hit in his report to the Venetian government as a "fortunate shot." After conquering the Acropolis in early 1688, he tried to loot the horses and chariots of Athena and Poseidon from the western pediment, but the sculptures fell and smashed—the first documented attempt to remove sculptures from the pediments. The Ottomans regained the monument the next year. Morosini also took the Piraeus Lion as a war trophy to the Venetian Arsenal.

Doge

In the summer of 1688, after being proclaimed Doge, Morosini attacked Negropont again but failed to capture it. Plague broke out among his troops, forcing him back to Venice. He launched a final campaign in 1693, but once more could not take Negropont, and returned after sacking a few minor coastal towns. After his death in 1694, a large marble arch was placed in his honor at the Doge’s Palace.