SummerSimo Travel Troubles Notes and The Purring Page

From 1387 to 1460, the Ottomans organized a total of 13 expeditions against the Morea until they had the peninsula almost entirely subjugated. By then, only the two strongest contestants remained standing: the opulent “Most Serene” Republic of Saint Mark and the rising Ottoman Empire were on a direct collision course.
In all, between 1423 and 1718, the sultans fought eight wars against the Republic, maritime shield and bulwark of Christendom. Religious zeal, ambition and economic antagonisms were the main catalysts of these ferocious conflicts.
After conquering Constantinople his “Golden Apple”, Mehmed II spent his entire existence enhancing the Ottoman military apparatus and grinding down any organized opposition to his hegemonic rule, eventually incorporating the whole Anatolian Peninsula, most of the Balkans, and turning the Black Sea into an Ottoman lake. In the process of empire building, mostly at the expanse of Christendom, the Conqueror and his immediate successors also established Ottoman sea power, challenging Venice’s sustained maritime supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean and at the mouth of the Adriatic.
-Illustration: Map of the Morea by Frederik De Wit,1680s.