Gabriele Trevisano was a

Venetian Venetian often means from or related to: * Venice, a city in Italy * Veneto, a region of Italy * Republic of Venice (697–1797), a historical nation in that area Venetian and the like may also refer to: * Venetian language, a Romance language s ...

commander, who participated on the losing side of the

Fall of Constantinople The Fall of Constantinople, also known as the Conquest of Constantinople, was the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by the Ottoman Empire. The city fell on 29 May 1453 as part of the culmination of a 53-day siege which had begun o ...

in 1453, having joined the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

in its defence of its capital city against the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University ...

. Alongside his fellow Venetian merchant-captain Alviso Diedo, he had anchored with his ships at the

Golden Horn The Golden Horn ( tr, Altın Boynuz or ''Haliç''; grc, Χρυσόκερας, ''Chrysókeras''; la, Sinus Ceratinus) is a major urban waterway and the primary inlet of the Bosphorus in Istanbul, Turkey. As a natural estuary that connects with t ...

on a return voyage from the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...

, when the forces of Sultan

Mehmed II Mehmed II ( ota, محمد ثانى, translit=Meḥmed-i s̱ānī; tr, II. Mehmed, ; 30 March 14323 May 1481), commonly known as Mehmed the Conqueror ( ota, ابو الفتح, Ebū'l-fetḥ, lit=the Father of Conquest, links=no; tr, Fâtih Su ...

laid siege to the city. The Venetians promised to remain in the city to fight - a total of six Venetian vessels and three from the Venetian colony of

Crete Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, ...

were retained in the harbour with the consent of their commanders, now turned into warships. On 28 April a battle broke out between Venetian and Genoese vessels on one side and Turkish ships on the other. Trivisano's galley was sunk by Turkish cannon-fire, and abandoned. At other times the Venetians and their allies won some minor naval skirmishes against the Turks. During the siege, Trivisano also commanded a Byzantine garrison at the

Maiden's Tower __NOTOC__ The Maiden's Tower ( tr, Kız Kulesi), also known as Leander's Tower (''Tower of Leandros'') since the medieval Byzantine period, is a tower on a small islet at the southern entrance of the Bosphorus strait, from the coast of Ü ...

. Towards the end, Trivisano was captured by the Sultan's forces before he and his men could escape from the walls.

References

Republic of Venice military personnel 15th-century Venetian people Italian sailors Fall of Constantinople People of the Byzantine–Ottoman wars Prisoners of war held by the Ottoman Empire {{mil-bio-stub