Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 1.djvu/117

 resigning Scodra and Kroja, Negroponte, Lemnos and the Mainote district in Laconia. She agreed to pay a yearly sum of 10,000 ducats for free commerce in the Ottoman dominions, and recovered the right of keeping as before a Bailo (consul) at Constantinople (January, 1479).

This peace was agreeable neither to the Pope nor to Hungary. King Matthias Corvinus fancied that he was born and trained to be a champion against the infidel. But other occupations prevented this remarkable ruler from achieving much in this direction. His greatest feat was the capture of Szabacs, a fortress on the Save built by Mohammad (1476). He was fain to follow up this success, but wars with the Elector Albrecht of Brandenburg distracted him during the next years, and nothing further was effected until in 1479 his generals inflicted a crushing defeat upon a Turkish army in Transylvania.

Venice now held nothing on the Albanian coast but Durazzo, Antivari, and Butrinto; while the Turks, in possession of Albania, began to push forward to the Ionian Islands and Italy. Zante, Cephalonia, and Santa Maura belonged to the Neapolitan family of Tocco, with the title of "Count of Cephalonia and Duke of Leucadia." Mohammad seized these three islands (1479); but an agreement in 1485 gave Zante to Venice, who paid a tribute for it to the Porte.

The condition of Italy at this juncture allured Mohammad across the Adriatic. The King of Naples was at war with Florence and was nursing ambitious designs of making himself lord of all Italy, and Venice watched his proceedings with the deepest suspicion. It is a disputed question whether Venice urged the Ottoman Sultan (as successor to the Byzantine emperors) to lay claim to southern Italy; but at all events in 1480 Mohammad sent an armament under Kedyk Ahmad, and Otranto fell at once. The commandant and the archbishop were sawn in two—the favourite Ottoman mode of intimidation at this time. From the surrounding land some people were transported as slaves to Albania. But the Turks made no progress. Want of provisions hampered them, and presently Ferdinand arrived with an army and confined the invaders to Otranto. But help was urgently needed; for it was known that the Sultan would come himself next year with an overwhelming force. Except a few troops and galleys sent from Spain by Ferdinand the Catholic, no help came. The situation was, however, unexpectedly saved. Mohammad's attention was diverted by the more pressing necessity of conquering Rhodes; and then his sudden death delivered Rhodes and Italy alike.

Throughout the years of the Venetian war Mohammad had been busy and fortunate elsewhere, in the east and in the north. Of the small principalities which had sprung up after the collapse of the Seljuk power in Asia Minor, only that of Caramania (Lycaonia and Isauria with parts of Galatia, Cappadocia, and Cilicia) still remained independent. The death of its lord, Ibrahim (1463), was followed