first
numbered about 12,000, under the command of the Marchese di Villa, a
Piedmontese officer of approved skill and courage, received, at the end
of June, a reinforcement of 1000 veteran troops, brought by the Venetian
Captain-General Morosini, who arrived with the fleet at the Isle of
Standia, off the entrance of the port; and a concourse of volunteers,
from all parts of Europe, hastened to share in the defence of this last
bulwark of Christendom in the Grecian seas; while the Maltese, Papal,
and Neapolitan galleys cruised in the offing, to intercept the supplies
brought by sea to the Ottoman camp. The Turks, meanwhile, with their
usual stubborn perseverance, continued to push their sap under the
ravelin of Mocenigo, and the Panigra bastion which it covered; and
though their progress was retarded, and their works often ruined, by the
sallies of the defenders, the foundations were at length shaken, and the
ramparts rent and shattered, by the explosion of innumerable mines; and
the janissaries, fired with fanatic zeal, and stimulated by promises of
reward, rushed again and again to the attack under the eye of the vizir.
"Many and various," says Rycaut, in his quaint narrative, "were the
valiant assaults and sallies, the traverses extraordinary, the
rencounters bloody, the resistance vigorous, not known or recorded in
any siege before;" and the struggle continued with unabated fury on both
sides, till the approach of winter; while, after each unsuccessful
assault, the Venetians, emulating the ferocity of their enemies,
displayed the heads of the slain and prisoners (for no quarter was given
or taken) in barbarous triumph from the wall. At length, after a
desperate conflict on November 16, the janissaries effected a lodgement
in the Mocenigo bastion and the Panigra; and the Ottoman banners, for
the first time, were displayed from the summit of the works. But this
valiant forlorn hope, in the moment of triumph, was hurled into the air
by the explosion of a previously-prepared mine; and Kiuprili, dismayed
at this last failure, drew off his troops into their lines, where they
lay inactive, till the inundation of the camp by the winter rains
compelled them to withdraw to a greater distance.

[16] The use of parallels is usually said to have been
introduced at this time by Kiuprili; but they were certainly
employed before Neuhausel, four years earlier.

[17] These were, the Sabionera, covered by the detached