came in the form of Venice omitting Leonardo from their 1479 peace treaty with the Ottomans, effectively leaving him as the sole remaining belligerent against Sultan Mehmed II. The unfavorable peace deal Leonardo managed to secure with the Ottomans resulted in him having to not only pay 4,000 ducats annually in tribute but also in Leonardo agreeing to gift 500 ducats to any visiting Ottoman provincial governor. Unfortunately for Leonardo, an Ottoman official visited him shortly after the peace deal was signed. Given that this official was still underage and had recently lost the dignity of pasha, Leonardo gifted him with a selection of fruit rather than 500 ducats. Angered by this lackluster gift, the young official reached out to the sultan, reminding Mehmed of Leonardo having been left out of the greater Venetian peace deal and Leonardo's pro-Venetian stance during the war. Eager for a pretext to invade Leonardo's domain, from which Mehmed eventually hoped to launch an invasion of Italy, the sultan sent a fleet of 29 ships commanded by Gedik Ahmed Pasha, a former grand vizier, to conquer the islands. Knowing that the Venetians were not going to help him, and that Naples would be unable to, as well as the fact that many of his own non-Latin subjects detested him, Leonardo concluded that fighting against the Ottomans was futile. Thus, the despot collected his valuables and fled from the island of Lefkada, where he had ruled from, to the fortress of St. George on the island of Cephalonia, the strongest of the fortresses under his control. Leonardo began to mistrust the garrison of St. George. When the Ottomans arrived and spotted his treasure-ship, Leonardo decided to flee, hastily boarding a Venetian ship, alongside his wife, his son Carlo, and his brothers Giovanni and Antonio, headed to Taranto in southern Italy One-by-one, Leonardo's few remaining possessions quickly fell to the Ottomans in August and September 1479, with officials being killed, castles being burned and many people of the lower classes being carried off. Life in exile Italy was the obvious choice for refuge, given that it was the nearest Christian land and the ancestral homeland of Leonardo's family. Leonardo was also well-connected to the Italian nobility and could thus expect a welcome reception. Not only was Leonard the nephew-in-law of the Neapolitan king, Leonardo's sister-in-law was also married to Pope Sixtus IV's nephew. Leonardo and his family