During which war did the Venetian bombardment of the Parthenon occur?

The Venetian bombardment of the Parthenon occurred during the Morean War, fought between Venice and the Ottoman Empire from 1684 to 1699. The conflict is also known as the Sixth Ottoman–Venetian War.

In 1687, Venetian forces under Francesco Morosini attacked Athens while campaigning to expand Venetian control from the Peloponnese, then called the Morea. Ottoman troops had turned the Parthenon into a gunpowder magazine and sheltered inside the Acropolis. During the siege, a Venetian mortar shell struck the building on 26 September 1687.

The resulting explosion killed about 300 people and destroyed the Parthenon’s roof and much of its walls. The damage was not caused by the original construction or by Lord Elgin’s later removals; those events occurred in different periods.

The war’s name can cause confusion because it refers to the Morea, the Venetian name for the Peloponnese, rather than to Athens specifically. The Venetians briefly occupied Athens, but their position was unstable, and they abandoned the city the following year. The Parthenon’s destruction remains the defining consequence of the 1687 siege.