smisses the siege in a few lines; and it
was not till the publication of Finlay's _History of Greece_ (vol. v.,
a.d. 1453-1821), in 1856, that the facts were known or reported.
Finlay's newly discovered authority was a then unpublished MS. of a
journal kept by Benjamin Brue, a connection of Voltaire's, who
accompanied the Grand Vizier, Ali Cumurgi, as his interpreter, on the
expedition into the Morea. According to Brue (_Journal de la Campagne
... en_ 1715 ... Paris, 1870, p. 18), the siege began on June 28, 1715.
A peremptory demand on the part of the Grand Vizier to surrender at
discretion was answered by the Venetian proveditor-general, Giacomo
Minetto, with calm but assured defiance ("Your menaces are useless, for
we are prepared to resist all your attacks, and, with confidence in the
assistance of God, we will preserve this fortress to the most serene
Republic. God is with us"). Nevertheless, the Turks made good their
threat, and on the 2nd of July the fortress capitulated. On the
following day at noon, whilst a party of Janissaries, contrary to order,
were looting and pillaging in all directions, the fortress was seen to
be enveloped in smoke. How or why the explosion happened was never
discovered, but the result was that some of the pillaging Janissaries
perished, and that others, to avenge their death, which they attributed
to Venetian treachery, put the garrison to the sword. It was believed at
the time that Minetto was among the slain; but, as Brue afterwards
discovered, he was secretly conveyed to Smyrna, and ultimately ransomed
by the Dutch Consul.

The late Professor Koelbing (_Siege of Corinth_, 1893, p. xxvii.), in
commenting on the sources of the poem, suggests, under reserve, that
Byron may have derived the incident of Minetto's self-immolation from an
historic source--the siege of Zsigetvar, in 1566, when a multitude of
Turks perished from the explosion of a powder magazine which had been
fired at the cost of his own life by the Hungarian commander Zrini.

It is, at least, equally probable that local patriotism was, in the
first instance, responsible for the poetic colouring, and that Byron
supplemented the meagre and uninteresting historic details which were at
his disposal by "intimate knowledge" of the Corinthian version of the
siege. (See _Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Right Hon. Lord
Byron_, London, 1822, p. 222; and _Memoirs of the Life and Writings of
Lord Byron_, by George Clinton, L