Qualla: Siege of Mytilene (1464) https://qualla.com/siege-of-mytilene-1464 en-us © 2026 Bendyline Thu, 23 Jul 2026 20:34:08 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/f/y/siege-of-mytilene-1464-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Siege of Mytilene (1464) https://qualla.com/siege-of-mytilene-1464 Siege of Mytilene (1464): Introduction https://qualla.com/siege-of-mytilene-1464/ Photo credit Katsiaryna Naliuka, CC BY-SA 3.0. Orsato Giustinian died of a broken heart. The Venetian admiral had sailed against the walls of Mytilene in the spring of 1464, hurled his fleet and his infantry at the Ottoman garrison again and again, and watched five thousand of his men fall. When a relief fleet of 150 Ottoman vessels appeared on the horizon, he abandoned the siege, left his cannon on the beach, and retreated. He tried once more with a smaller raid. It failed too. By July he was at Methoni in the Peloponnese, where, the chronicles say, he died of grief over his defeat at Lesbos.

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/f/y/siege-of-mytilene-1464-wp/swfy-siege-of-mytilene-1464-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Siege of Mytilene (1464): Unfinished Business https://qualla.com/siege-of-mytilene-1464/ Photo credit Katsiaryna Naliuka, CC BY-SA 3.0. Two years earlier, in 1462, Mehmed the Conqueror had taken Lesbos and ended a century of Genoese rule. Venice could not let the island rest in Ottoman hands. The Republic worried that the sultan might trade it to the Florentines, their commercial rivals, and Lesbos sat astride th...

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/f/y/siege-of-mytilene-1464-wp/swfy-siege-of-mytilene-1464-unfinished-business.mp3 0:06 2 full Siege of Mytilene (1464): Seven Weeks Against Stone https://qualla.com/siege-of-mytilene-1464/ Photo credit Katsiaryna Naliuka, CC BY-SA 3.0. The fleet was formidable: by one account 32 galleys, four ships carrying 800 infantry, and heavy artillery; by another, seventy ships and three thousand heavy infantry. Against them stood roughly 400 of the sultan's heavily armored guards, almost certainly Janissaries, behind the...

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/f/y/siege-of-mytilene-1464-wp/swfy-siege-of-mytilene-1464-seven-weeks-against-stone.mp3 0:06 3 full Siege of Mytilene (1464): The Sails on the Horizon https://qualla.com/siege-of-mytilene-1464/ Photo credit Katsiaryna Naliuka, CC BY-SA 3.0. What finally ended the siege was not a breach but news. Mehmed dispatched a relief fleet of 150 vessels under Mahmud Pasha Angelović, the same commander who had taken the island in 1462. When word reached the Venetians that this armada was coming, they did not wait to be trapped ...

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/f/y/siege-of-mytilene-1464-wp/swfy-siege-of-mytilene-1464-the-sails-on-the-horizon.mp3 0:06 4 full Siege of Mytilene (1464): A Failure That Set the Course https://qualla.com/siege-of-mytilene-1464/ Photo credit Katsiaryna Naliuka, CC BY-SA 3.0. The second try was a raid by Stratioti, Balkan light cavalry, and galley crews. It failed as completely as the first. Giustinian sailed on to Methoni and died there in July, undone, the sources insist, by the bitterness of his defeat. The siege left no monument, only a number: fi...

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/f/y/siege-of-mytilene-1464-wp/swfy-siege-of-mytilene-1464-a-failure-that-set-the-course.mp3 0:06 5 full