OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

249

precise day was adjourned to an indefinite term; chap.and his effective army consisted of some Ger- LXVin -man pilgrims, whom he was obliged to disbandwith indulgences and alms. Regardless of fu-turity, his successors and the powers of Italy were involved in the schemes of present and do-mestic ambition; and the distance or proximityof each object determined, in their eyes, its ap-parent magnitude. A more enlarged view oftheir interest would have taught them to main-tain a defensive and naval war against the com-mon enemy: and the support of Scanderbeg andhis brave Albanians might have prevented thesubsequent invasion of the kingdom of Naples .

The siege anti sack of Otranto by the Turksdiffused a general consternation; and pope Six-tus was preparing to fly beyond the Alps, whenthe storm was instantly dispelled by the death ]^hometof Mahomet the second, in the fifty-first year ofu.his age. d His lofty genius aspired to the con- May'3,01’quest of Italy : he was possessed of a strong city July 2 ‘and a capacious harbour; and the same reign

<“ Besides tlie two annalists, the reader may consult Giannone (Is-toria Civile, tom. iii, p. 449-455) for the Turkish invasion of thekingdom of Naples. For the reign and conquests of Mahomet II. , Ihave occasionally used the Memoiie Istoriche de Monarch! Ottoman-ni di Giovanni Sagredo (Venezia , 1677, in 4to). In peace and war,the Turks have ever engaged the attention of tile republic of Venice .All her dispatches and archives were open to a procurator of St.Mark, and Sagredo is not contemptible cither in sense or style. Yethe too bitterly hates the infidels ; he is ignorant of their language andmanners; and his narrative, which allows only seventy pages to Ma-homet II . (p. 69-140), becomes more copious and authentic as he ap-proaches the years 1610 and 1614, the term of the historic labours ofJohn Sagredo.