Deprived of their great general, the Venetians were crippled, while the cause of the Visconti was proportionately strengthened. Nevertheless, the war was brought to a close not long after. Sigismund, who had been crowned king of the Romans at Milan, was attacked by the Florentines and shut up in Siena. Partly through his influence the duke of Milan was led to sign a peace with the allies in 1433. The Venetians remained in possession of Brescia and Bergamo.[a]
Venice and the Turks
[1441-1465 A.D.]
A little later, by the ruin and exile of the last of the noble family of Polenta, the Venetians grasped the state of Ravenna (1441). In addition to these possessions in Italy, Venice continued to enjoy extensive territories in the East, besides Dalmatia and Durazzo; with other places in Arbani, she was mistress of the chief cities in Morea and many of the Ionian Islands. But the taking of Constantinople by the Turks and the captivity of the Venetians settled in Pera, threatened her power in the East, and she felt no repugnance to enter into a treaty with the enemies of her religion. After the usual negotiations, terms were concluded between Sigismund and Venice; by which her possessions were secured to her and her trade guaranteed to her throughout the empire. In virtue of this treaty, she continued to occupy Modon, Coron, Napoli di Romania (Nauplia), Argos, and other cities on the borders of the peninsula, together with Eubœa (Negropont), and some of the smaller islands. But this good understanding was interrupted in 1463, when the Turks contrived an excuse for attacking the Venetian territory. Under pretence of resenting the asylum afforded to a Turkish refugee, the pasha of the Morea besieged and captured Argos; and the republic felt itself compelled immediately to resent the aggression.
A Magistrate of Venice
A reinforcement was sent from Venice to Napoli, and Argos was quickly recaptured. Corinth was next besieged, and the project of fortifying the isthmus was once more renewed. The promontory which unites the Peloponnesus to the continent measures scarcely six miles across between the gulfs of Ægina and Lepanto. In the early ages of Greece the narrowness of this pass had suggested the possibility and expediency of fortifying it by a rampart; under the emperor Justinian, the ancient fortifications were renewed; and in 1413 a strong wall, named Hexamilion from its length, was erected by the emperor Manuel. Upon the present occasion, the labour of thirty thousand workmen accomplished the work in fifteen days: a stone wall of more than twelve feet high, defended by a ditch and flanked by 136 towers, was drawn across the isthmus; in the midst the standard of St. Mark was displayed; and the performance of the holy service completed the new fortification. But the approach of the Turks, whose numbers were probably exaggerated by report, threw the Venetians into distrust and consternation; and unwilling to confide in the strength of their rampart they abandoned the siege of Corinth, and retreated to Napoli, from which the infidels were repulsed with the loss of five thousand men.
The Peloponnesus was now exposed to the predatory retaliations of the Turks and Venetians; and the Christians appeared anxious to rival or surpass the Mohammedans in the refinement of their barbarous inflictions. The names of Sparta and Athens may create a momentary interest; the former, denoted by the modern town of Mistra erected near its ruins; the latter, the poor remains of the ancient city, but still one of the richest and most populous of Greek possessions. In the year 1465 Sigismondo Malatesta landed in the Morea, with a reinforcement of a thousand men; and, without effecting the reduction of the citadel, captured and burned Mistra. In the following year, Vittore Capello, with the Venetian fleet, arrived in the straits of Euripus, and landing at Aulis marched into Attica. After making himself master of the Piræus, he laid siege to Athens; her walls were overthrown; her inhabitants plundered; and the Venetians retreated with the spoil to the opposite shores of Eubœa.
[1465-1478 A.D.]
The victorious career of Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, for a time diverted the sultan from the war in the Morea; but when Matthias was induced to change his antagonists, and, instead of warring against the Turks, to turn upon his Christian brethren of Bohemia, Muhammed II solemnly bound himself by oath to abolish the idolatrous religion of Christ, and invited the disciples of the prophet to join him in his pious design. In the beginning of the year 1470, a fleet of 108 galleys, besides a number of smaller vessels, manned by a force 70,000 strong, issued from the harbour of Constantinople, and sailed for the straits of Euripus. Never since the days of Xerxes had those seas been cumbered by so vast a multitude; and in the same place, whither the Great King had once despatched his countless fleet, the vessels of the sultan were anchored. The army landed without molestation on the island, which they united to the mainland by a bridge of boats, and immediately proceeded to lay siege to the city of Negropont. Muhammed caused his tent to be pitched on a promontory of the Attic coast, and thence surveyed the operations of his soldiery.