Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/43

17 PARTITION OF NAPLES. 1? Stationed at Corfu, proceeded at once against the chapter fortified place of St. George, in Cephalonia, which — 1^ — the Turks had lately wrested from the republic. ^^ The town stood high on a rock, in an impregna- ble position, and was garrisoned by four hundred Turks, all veteran soldiers, prepared to die in its defence. We have not room for the details of this siege, in which both parties displayed unbounded courage and resources, and which was protracted nearly two months under all the privations of fam- ine, and the inclemencies of a cold and stormy winter.^^ At length, weary with this fatal procrastination, |J°'gg|Jjsj'f Gonsalvo and the Venetian admiral, Pesaro, re- solved on a simultaneous attack on separate quar- ters of the town. The ramparts had been already shaken by the mining operations of Pedro Navarro, who, in the Italian wars, acquired such terrible celebrity in this department, till then little under- stood. The Venetian cannon, larger and better served than that of the Spaniards, had opened a practicable breach in the works, which the besieged repaired with such temporary defences, as they could. The signal being given at the appointed hour, the two armies made a desperate assault on different quarters of the town, under cover of a murderous fire of artillery. The Turks sustained the attack with dauntless resolution, stopping up 21 Giovio, Vitae Illust. Virorum, ^2 Giovio, Vitse lUust. Virorum, torn. i. p. 226. — Chronica del Gran ubi supra. — Chronica del Gran Capitan, cap. 9. — Zurita, Hist. Capitan, cap. 14. del Rey Hernando, torn. i. lib. 4, cap. 19. VOL. III. 3