MOROSINI, FAMIGLIA. — One of the most distinguished families of Venice, whose members, over the course of the centuries, held the most important public offices on numerous occasions. It had four doges: DOMENICO, from 1148 to 1156, who asserted the Republic’s predominance in the Adriatic; MARINO, from 1249 to 1253, who pursued a policy of peace, avoiding any excessive expenditure of energy on military operations; MICHELE, son of the preceding, from 10 June to 15 Oct. 1382; FRANCESCO, from 1688 to 1694,
English; even amid so many affairs he had devoted himself zealously to the governance of his dioceses, especially that of Modena, where he convened three synods.
In addition to the Difesa, M.’s letters are found in various collections; the highly important diplomatic dispatches are in Nuntiaturberichte aus Deutschland (I, II, IV, VI; III, I, Gotha 1892–1908; partially [for the period 1536–41] in H. Lämmer, Monum. Vatican., Freiburg im Br. 1861, V. index).
the most famous of all, a sailor and man of war, the heroic defender of Crete in 1666 and the reconqueror of the Morea from 1684 onward, an undertaking for which he was called “Il Peloponnesiaco.” Among the ecclesiastics were the b. GIOVANNI (10th cent.), who donated the island of S. Giorgio Maggiore to the Benedictines and later became abbot of that monastery; TOMASO, from 1205 to 1211, the first Latin patriarch of Constantinople; PIETRO, a lecturer in utriusque iuris at the University of Padua, created a cardinal in 1408 by Gregory XII and recognized as such by Martin V; GIANFRANCESCO, a friend of Filippo Neri, who, after a brilliant diplomatic career in the service of the Serenissima, which he represented in Turin, Madrid, Poland, and Constantinople, embraced the ecclesiastical state, became nuncio in Paris, was made a cardinal in 1588 by Sixtus V, and administered as bishop the diocese of Brescia for six years, from 1590 to 1596, until his death at the age of 59.