Leonardo da Vinci’s slightly later works of…

In the meantime, however, the threat that Cem might lead a foreign attack has compelled Bayezid to concentrate on internal consolidation.

Most of the property confiscated by his father for military campaigns is restored to its original owners.

Equal taxes are established around the empire so that all subjects can fulfill their obligations to the government without the kind of disruption and dissatisfaction that had characterized the previous regime.

Particularly important is the establishment of the avâriz-i divaniye (“war chest”) tax, which provides for the extraordinary expenditures of war without special confiscations or heavy levies.

Though Bayezid prefers to maintain peace-in order to have the time and resources to concentrate on internal development-he is forced into a number of campaigns by the exigencies of the period and the demands of his more militant devsirme followers.

Cem had received a letter from his brother while he was in Cairo, offering him one million akçes (the Ottoman currency) to stop competing for the throne.

Cem had rejected the offer, and in the following year he launches a campaign in Anatolia with the help of the Mamluks and the last Turkmen ruler of Karaman, but his effort to secure the support of the Turkmen nomads fails because of their attraction to Bayezid's heterodox religious policies.

He besieges Konya on May 27, 1482,  but is soon forced to withdraw to …

…Ankara.

He intends to give it all up and return to Cairo but all of the roads to Egypt are under Bayezid's control.

The fugitive Sultan Cem and a few followers ask protection of the Spanish captain of Bodrum Castle.

Pierre d'Aubusson, grand master of the Knights of St. John, now invites Cem to Rhodes.

Prince Cem goes to Rhodes on June 29 as a guest and is received with honor.

In return for the overthrow of the new sultan Bayezid, Cem offers perpetual peace between the Ottoman Empire and Christendom.

Rhodes not being considered secure, Cem with his own consent is sent to d’Aubusson’s castle in France where he is kept under the guard of Guy de Blanchefort, d'Aubusson's nephew.

D'Aubusson accepts an annuity of forty-five thousand ducats from Bayezid II, in return for which he undertakes to guard Cem in such a way as to prevent him from appealing to the Christian powers to aid him against his brother.

Giuliano da Maiano designs Poggio Reale, the royal villa in Naples, in about 1487-8.

The Marquis of Cádiz, in retaliation for the sudden seizure of the Zahara fortress by the emirate of Granada, seizes the Moorish town of Alhama, close to Granada, in a similar surprise attack on February 28, 1482.

The seizure of Alhama and its subsequent royal endorsement is usually said to be the formal beginning of the Granada War.

Abu Hasan attemps to retake Alhama by siege in March, but is unsuccessful.

Reinforcements from the rest of Castile and Aragon avert the possibility of retaking Alhama in April 1482; King Ferdinand himself formally taesk command at Alhama on May 14, 1482.

Ferdinand and his queen Isabella, following his capture of the Moorish town of Alhama, prepare to besiege Moorish-held Medina Lawsa, launching a fleet to thwart sea borne Moorish reinforcements, but the Moorish land forces defeat Ferdinand’s army at the Battle of Loja on July 1, 1482.

This setback to the Spanish Christians is balanced by a twist that will prove to aid them greatly: on the same day as Loja is relieved, Abu Hasan's son, Abu Abdallah or Boabdil, rebels and styled himself Emir Muhammad XII.

The failure of the Pazzi Conspiracy against Florence in 1478 and the unexpected peace as a result of Lorenzo de' Medici's daring personal diplomacy with Ferdinand I of Naples, the Pope's erstwhile champion, is a source of discontent among the Venetians and Pope Sixtus IV alike.

Venice, having ended its long conflict with the Ottoman Turks in 1479 with the Treaty of Constantinople, is thus free to turn its complete attention to its role in its terra firma (main land) and generally to the peninsula of Italy.

In addition to the usual minor friction over strongholds along the borders, there is a contest over the commerce in salt, which is reserved to Venice by a commercial pact.

Nevertheless, Ferrara, which is ruled by Ercole I d'Este, has begun to take control over the saltworks at Comacchio.

This appears to be a threat to mainland interests of the Serenissima.

Venice is supported by Girolamo Riario, lord of Imola and Forlì,—the nephew of Pope Sixtus—who had taken possession of the strategic stronghold of Forlì in September 1480, with quick papal confirmation, and who now looks towards Ferrara in extending Della Rovere territory.

The immediate casus belli at the beginning of 1482 is a minor infraction of prerogatives: Venice had maintained a representative in Ferrara with the high title of visdominio, under whose care was the Venetian community in Este lands.

The visdominio, overreaching his mandate in 1481 with the arrest of a priest for debt, had been excommunicated by the vicar of the bishop of Ferrara, and forced out of the city.

On this excuse, war is declared.

Allied with Venice, besides the papal troops and Riario, are contingents supplied by the Republic of Genoa and William VIII, Marquis of Montferrat.

Troops taking Ferrara's side, loosely under the command of Federico da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino, are those of Ercole's father-in-law Ferdinand of Naples, under his son Alfonso of Calabria, who invaded the Papal States from the south, as well as those sent by Ludovico il Moro of Milan and by the lords of two cities threatened by the mainland power of Venice, Federico I Gonzaga of Mantua and Giovanni II Bentivoglio of Bologna.

Venetian troops led by the condottiero Roberto Sanseverino attack Ferrarese territory from the north, brutally sacking Adria, quickly overrunning Comacchio, attacking Argenta at the edge of the saltmarshes and besieging Ficarolo in May, which capitulates on June 29, and Rovigo, which capitulates on August 17.

Venetian forces cross the Po River and in November 1482 stand before the walls of Ferrara and lay strict siege to the city.

Sixtus appears to have had a change of heart at the season's advances, which now threaten o put Venice in an uncomfortably strong position in mainland northern Italy.