The Ottomans face fierce resistance from Albanian highlanders who gather around their leader, Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg, the offspring of a feudal nobleman, and manage to fend off Ottoman attacks for more than thirty years.

The Albanian struggle is one of the two remaining bastions of anti-Ottoman resistance in Eastern Europe after the Battle of Kosovo in 1389.

It has been argued that their resilience halted the Ottoman advance along the Eastern flank of the Western Civilization, saving the Italian peninsula from Ottoman conquest.

Sultan Mehmet II will die in 1481, merely two years after the collapse of the Albanian resistance and one year after launching the Italian campaign.