designated Vettor Pisani as leader, in spite of the disastrous defeat he had suffered at Pola, and the government withdrew their own candidate, Taddeo Giustinian. Thirty-four galleys were put together, and Pisani took the command. Meanwhile Doria had resolved to withdraw his whole fleet into Chioggia for winter quarters. Pisani grasped the situation and seized the opportunity. He resolved to blockade the blockaders. All the channels which gave egress from Chioggia to the sea were rendered useless by sinking across them galleys filled with stones. Pisani then drew up his fleet in the open sea opposite the Chioggian entrance to the Lagoons, in order to intercept any reinforcements which might be sent from Genoa. The Genoese in Chioggia were all the while straining every nerve to break through Pisani's lines; his crews were kept on guard by turns day and night; it was winter time, and a storm from the east or south-east might easily spring up such as would probably drive Pisani on to the lee shore. The strain on the Venetians was very great. But just when they were on the point of abandoning the blockade, Carlo Zeno's fleet, which had been cruising down the Adriatic, hove in sight. The reinforcements enabled Pisani to land troops and to occupy the point of Brondolo, whence his two great guns, the "Trevisana" and the "Vittoria," opened on the town. A shot from one of them brought down the Campanile and killed the Genoese admiral Doria. His successor, Napoleone Grimaldi, withdrew all his troops into Chioggia, and abandoned the design of cutting a new canal from the Lagoons to the sea. Carlo Zeno with a company of mercenaries disembarked on the mainland and eventually succeeded in cutting off the supplies which Carrara was sending into Chioggia. The Genoese began building light boats in which they hoped to be able to sail over the obstacles in the channels that led to the Adriatic. Twice they attempted a sortie and failed. Famine came to close the long list of their disasters, and on June 24t, 1380, the Genoese fleet surrendered to Venice.
The successful issue of the war of Chioggia left the Republic of Venice the supreme naval Power in the Mediterranean. Genoa never recovered from the blow. She fell a prey to internal feuds, and in 1396 she renounced her independence, receiving from Charles VI of France a governor who ruled the State in French interests. Venetian predominance in the Mediterranean was confirmed by the recovery of Corfu in 1386, and by the purchase of Argos and Nauplia in the Peloponnese. But at the very moment when her power seemed indisputably established a new and formidable rival began to loom on the horizon. Sultan Bayazid's victory at Nikopolis in 1392 planted a Muslim mosque and a Cadi in Constantinople and presaged for Venice that long series of wars, which were destined eventually to drain her resources and to rob her of her maritime supremacy.
