Morosini

The Morosini were one of the oldest patrician houses of Venice, said to have settled in the lagoon before the tenth century; they crushed their rivals the Caloprini in the late tenth century. They gave the Republic four doges and many generals and admirals. Doge Domenico Morosini, elected in 1148, led Venice's expansion into the Adriatic against Dalmatian corsairs and the cities of Istria.

On the Fourth Crusade the family supplied Domenico and Sebastiano Morosini among the crusader captains, while the monk Tommaso Morosini became the first Latin Patriarch of Constantinople in 1204. Through marriage Tomasina Morosini became queen of Hungary and mother of King Andrew III. Antonio Morosini chronicled the city's affairs in the early fifteenth century in the Morosini Codex.

After a quieter period the family rose again with Francesco Morosini, captain-general in the Morean War against the Ottomans, who conquered the Peloponnese and was elected doge in 1688, the first doge since Enrico Dandolo to lead a great fleet in person.