After sixteen years of intermittent war that drained Venetian coffers and cost the Republic key Aegean and Albanian strongholds, Venice's ambassador signed terms with Sultan Mehmed II's court. The treaty forced Venice to surrender Scutari and pay 10,000 ducats annually to retain trading privileges in the Black Sea, marking a decisive shift of Mediterranean power toward Constantinople.
Venice had built its wealth on maritime trade routes stretching from the lagoon to the Black Sea, and for sixteen brutal years it fought Sultan Mehmed II to keep them open. By 1479 the Republic was exhausted, its treasury bled dry by the cost of fielding fleets and garrisons across the Aegean. The peace signed on this day forced Venice to give up hard-won outposts including Scutari, and to accept the humiliating condition of an annual tribute of 10,000 ducats simply to keep trading in Ottoman waters.
The treaty is often overlooked next to the fall of Constantinople in 1453, but it completed a process that event began: the eclipse of Christian naval dominance in the eastern Mediterranean. Venetian merchants, ever pragmatic, decided that trade under tribute was preferable to no trade at all. It was a bitter bargain that foreshadowed the Republic's slow retreat from empire over the following two centuries.