Avlona, Sanjak of

Skanderbeg successfully repulses another attempt in 1466, bringing to thirteen the total number of major Turkish invasions he has combated since 1444.

Sultan Memhed II, upon hearing of the death of Skanderbeg at sixty-four on January 17, 1468, reportedly cries out, "Asia and Europe are mine at last. Woe to Christendom! She has lost her sword and shield."

The quarrelsome Albanian nobles resume their bickering but continue to war in desultory fashion against the Turks, who, reasserting their power, reconquer Albania within a decade and make it part of the Ottoman empire.

An Albanian force of about thirty thousand men, under a red flag bearing Skanderbeg's heraldic emblem, has held off brutal Ottoman campaigns against their lands for the past twenty-four years.

Following Skanderbeg's death at Lezhë on January 17, 1468, the quarrelsome Albanian nobles resume their bickering but continue to war in desultory fashion against the Turks.

The Ottoman Turks, having knocked the Ak Koyunlu Turkmen confederation out of the Venetian-Turkish war in 1473, overrun Albania and raid the outskirts of core Venetian territory.

Resistance to the Ottoman Empire, with support from Naples and the papacy, continues mostly in Albania's highlands, where the chieftains even oppose the construction of roads out of fear that they will bring Ottoman soldiers and tax collectors.

The Albanians' fractured leadership fails to halt the Ottoman onslaught, however.

Davud Pasha is a converted Muslim and formerly Christian Albanian, who during his childhood was conscripted through the devşirme system in the ranks of the Ottoman army, where he was converted to Islam.

As Beylerbey of the Anatolian Eyalet in 1473, he had been one of the commanders of the Ottoman army in the decisive victory against Ak Koyunlu in the Battle of Otlukbeli.

He is in 1478 given control of the troops marching against Shkodër, Albania by Sultan Mehmed II, who marches against Krujë.

Davud Pasha manages to capture the city, which is the last stronghold of the League of Lezhë, thus ending the Ottoman-Albanian Wars.

Davud Pasha becomes governor (sanjakbey) of the sanjak of Bosnia and as the commander of large force of akincilar cavalry carries out extensive attacks and raids against the Kingdom of Hungary.

Venice's long decline had started in the earlier part of the fifteenth century, when it first made an unsuccessful attempt between 1423 and 1430 to hold Thessalonica against the Ottomans.

It had also sent ships to help defend Constantinople in 1453 against the besieging Turks.

After Constantinople fell to Sultan Mehmet II, he declared war on Venice.

The war lasted thirty years and cost Venice much of its eastern Mediterranean possessions.

Next, Christopher Columbus had discovered the New World in 1492, and now Vasco da Gama of Portugal has found a sea route to India by rounding the Cape of Good Hope during his first voyage of 1497-99, destroying Venice's land route monopoly.

France, England and the Dutch Republic will soon follow.

Venice's oared galleys are at a disadvantage when it comes to traversing the great oceans, and Venice will therefore be left behind in the race for colonies.

Venice has meanwhile been encouraging revolts against the sultan in the Morea, Dalmatia, and Albania, which it had ceded in 1479 to the Ottomans.

Kemal Res had set sail from Constantinople in January 1499 with a force of ten galleys and four other types of ships, and in July meets with the huge Ottoman fleet and takes over its command in order to wage a large-scale war against the Republic of Venice.

The Ottoman fleet consists of sixty-seven galleys, twenty galliots and about two hundred smaller vessels.

Kemal Reis, after reaching Cape Zonchio in the Ionian Sea with the large Ottoman fleet in August 1499, defeats the Venetian fleet of forty-seven galleys, seventeen galliots and about a hundred smaller vessels under the command of Antonio Grimani.

Grimani, sixty-five, had only obtained the command through a donation of sixteen thousand ducats to the state.

He had not been told whether to fight an offensive or defensive campaign.

Many captains ignore his orders to attack the Ottomans and he does not personally take part in the battle.

Grimani, on the day of the second battle, orders the crews to kill any captains who refuse to fight.

Despite this, and the arrival of four French galleys he sends just two galleys out of one hundred and seventy against the Ottomans.

Both somehow return unharmed.

The Venetians capture some Ottoman galleys on August 25, then discipline breaks down and the Ottomans recapture the vessels while they are being looted.

The French reinforcements abandon the Venetians in disgust and flee to Rhodes.

During the most critical stage of the battle, two Venetian carracks, captained by Andrea Loredan (a member of the influential Loredan family of Venice) and Alban d'Armer, board one of the command ships of the Ottoman fleet.

The commander of the vessel, Burak Reis, is unable to disentangle his ship from the boarders and chooses to set her aflame.

The sight of the three great ships burning together deals a severe blow to the Venetian morale.

Antonio Grimani is arrested on September 29 and banished to the island of Cherso.

Grimani will in 1521 become the Doge of Venice.