Venice's long decline had started in the earlier part of the fifteenth century, when it first made an unsuccessful attempt between 1423 and 1430 to hold Thessalonica against the Ottomans.

It had also sent ships to help defend Constantinople in 1453 against the besieging Turks.

After Constantinople fell to Sultan Mehmet II, he declared war on Venice.

The war lasted thirty years and cost Venice much of its eastern Mediterranean possessions.

Next, Christopher Columbus had discovered the New World in 1492, and now Vasco da Gama of Portugal has found a sea route to India by rounding the Cape of Good Hope during his first voyage of 1497-99, destroying Venice's land route monopoly.

France, England and the Dutch Republic will soon follow.

Venice's oared galleys are at a disadvantage when it comes to traversing the great oceans, and Venice will therefore be left behind in the race for colonies.

Venice has meanwhile been encouraging revolts against the sultan in the Morea, Dalmatia, and Albania, which it had ceded in 1479 to the Ottomans.

Kemal Res had set sail from Constantinople in January 1499 with a force of ten galleys and four other types of ships, and in July meets with the huge Ottoman fleet and takes over its command in order to wage a large-scale war against the Republic of Venice.

The Ottoman fleet consists of sixty-seven galleys, twenty galliots and about two hundred smaller vessels.