Venice has by 1480 inhabited the Latin…
1480 CE to 1491 CE
Venice has by 1480 inhabited the Latin and Greek remnants left free of Ottoman rule.
During the prolonged struggle between the Venetians and the Ottoman Turks for the coastal regions of Thessaly and the Morea, the independent island county of Cephalonia had changed hands several times and the ruling Tocchi family had been expelled in 1481.
Seated in the islands of the Ionian Sea or in the acquisitions in Central Greece, the dynasty of the Tocchi had attempted to win over the populations by ceding to the seigneurs, according to the Chronicle of the Tocco, "inheritances", "estates", "kratimata" and "pronoias".
Following an analogous policy on the religious front, Leonardo III, the last of the Tocchi dynasty, had reinstatef the Orthodox episcopal throne of Cephalonia that had been abolished by the Orsini.
Venice was not pleased with the increased influence of the Tocchi.
The downfall of the duchy of the Tocchi by the Turks in 1479 has given the opportunity to the Serenissima to intervene resolutely in the Ionian Sea and its success, through the treaty of 1484, in annexing Zakynthos, or Zante.