cimen, came near to rivalling them. On land, the Republic
could not meet the troops of the Grand Signior, and after her very
existence had been menaced by the near approach of a Turkish army on
the banks of the Piave[13] (1477), Venice made peace, and even, it is
said, incited the Turks to the capture of Otranto. The Ottoman galleys
were now free of the Adriatic, and carried fire and sword along the
Italian coast, insomuch that whenever the crescent was seen at a
vessel's peak the terrified villagers fled inland, and left their
homes at the mercy of the pirates. The period of the Turkish Corsairs
had already begun.

There was another naval power to be reckoned with besides discredited
Genoa and tributary Venice. The Knights Hospitallers of Jerusalem,
driven from Smyrna (in 1403) by Timur, had settled at Rhodes, which
they hastened to render impregnable. Apparently they succeeded, for
attack after attack from the Maml[=u]k Sultans of Egypt failed to
shake them from their stronghold, whence they commanded the line of
commerce between Alexandria and Constantinople, and did a brisk trade
in piracy upon passing vessels. The Knights of Rhodes were the
Christian Corsairs of the Levant; the forests of Caramania furnished
them with ships, and the populations of Asia Minor supplied them with
slaves. So long as they roved the seas the Sultan's galleys were ill
at ease. Even Christian ships suffered from their high-handed
proceedings, and Venice looked on with open satisfaction when, in
1480, Mohammed II. despatched one hundred and sixty ships and a large
army to humble the pride of the Knights. The siege failed, however;
D'Aubusson, the Grand Master, repulsed the general assault with
furious heroism, and the Turks retired with heavy loss.[14]

Finding that the Ottomans were not quite invincible, Venice plucked up
heart, and began to prepare for hostilities with her temporary ally.
The interval of friendliness had been turned to good account by the
Turks. Y[=a]ni, the Christian shipbuilder of the Sultan, had studied
the improvements of the Venetians, and he now constructed two immense
_kokas_, seventy cubits long and thirty in the beam, with masts of
several trees spliced together, measuring four cubits round. Forty men
in armour might stand in the maintop and fire down upon the enemy.
There were two decks, one like a galleon's deck, and the other like a
galley, each with a big gun on either side. Four-and-twenty oars a
side, on