Francesco Farnese (19 May 1678 – 26 February 1727) reigned as the seventh Farnese Duke of Parma and Piacenza from 1694 until his death. Married to Dorothea Sophia of the Palatinate, his brother Odoardo's widow, to avoid the return of her dowry, Francesco curtailed court expenditure, enormous under his father and predecessor, Ranuccio II, while preventing the occupation of his Duchy of Parma, nominally a Papal fief, during the War of the Spanish Succession.