John Morosini

Blessed John Morosini was a Venetian abbot of the illustrious Morosini family and the founder of the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. He reposed around 1012. His veneration never received formal approval; since ancient times he has been called "blessed" in the Benedictine order.

Little is known of his personal life. He was the son-⁠in-⁠law of the doge Pietro I Orseolo and stood close to him. On 3 September 978, together with his father-⁠in-⁠law and others, he left Venice in the company of Abbot Guarinus of the monastery of Saint-⁠Michel-⁠de-⁠Cuxa in the eastern Pyrenees, where he embraced the monastic life under the Benedictine rule. In the 10th century Cuxa was a great center of monastic reform.

In 982 he returned to his native city and asked the doge Tribuno Memmo for the island of San Giorgio to found a monastery there; the doge granted the request and enlarged the island to carry the monastic buildings. John is honored in the Benedictine tradition as a saint of the undivided Church, on 5 February, by the Western calendar (new style).