di Murta

The di Murta were a family of affluent Genoese commoners who took their name from the village of Murta in the Polcevera valley. Their only doge was the banker Giovanni di Murta, elected on 25 December 1345 after the resignation of Simone Boccanegra.

He checked the Grimaldi faction and sent the fleet of Simone Vignoso to relieve Chios from the siege of Jani Beg, khan of the Golden Horde, and retake Phocaea with its alum mines in 1346. Unable to pay the captains, he vested the island's revenues in them, creating the Maona of Chios and Phocaea.

He charged his son Tommaso di Murta with the reconquest of Corsica, where only Bonifacio still flew the Genoese flag. The Black Death reached Genoa from Kaffa in 1347, and Giovanni died of the plague on 6 January 1350.