Siege of the Castle of Saint George
The siege of the Castle of Saint George or siege of Cephalonia occurred from 8 November until 24 December 1500, when following a series of Venetian disasters at the hands of the Turks, the Spanish-Venetian army under Captain Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba and Benedetto Pesaro succeeded in capturing the Ottoman stronghold of Cephalonia.
Background
Cephalonia, one of the Ionian Islands off the western coast of Greece, had been in the hands of the Italian counts palatine of the Tocco family until 1479, when it was captured by the Ottoman Empire during the First Ottoman–Venetian War. With the exception of a brief period of Venetian control in 1482–83, the island remained in Ottoman hands until 1500.The Second Ottoman–Venetian War broke out in 1499 with the Ottoman attack on the Venetian port of Lepanto on the Greek mainland, which surrendered on 24 August 1499. The war continued to go badly for Venice, as the Ottomans shifted their attention to the Morea and stormed Modon on 9 August 1500, followed by the surrender thereupon of the neighbouring forts Coron and Navarino.