The marriage of Maria of Enghien and Pietro Cornaro coincided with an increasing Venetian interest in the region, as the Republic faced new challenges and opportunities in the Aegean with the rise of the Ottomans. Possession of Nauplia would complete Venice's control of the shores of the Morea, which in turn controlled the routes from the Adriatic to the eastern Mediterranean; while Nauplia itself was valuable as an intermediate stop for the Black Sea commercial routes as well. Maria of Enghien and Pietro Cornaro were both still young when they became lords of Argos and Nauplia. In the first years of their reign, they resided in Venice, and Pietro's father Federico acted on their behalf, securing permissions from the Venetian government to send supplies or arm a galley to defend the lordship. Following his father's death in 1382, Pietro secured permission by the Venetian government to go to Nauplia himself; by this time, in Anthony Luttrell's words, "the [Venetian] senate considered these places more or less as Venetian possessions". When Pietro Cornaro died in 1388, Maria, unable to defend her possessions, sold them to Venice on 12 December in exchange for an annual subsidy of 700 ducats. Before the Venetians could arrive to take over the two towns, however, the Byzantine Despot of the Morea Theodore I Palaiologos (), and his ally and father-in-law Nerio I Acciaioli seized them with the aid of an Ottoman army under Evrenos. Although the Venetians were quickly able to oust Nerio from Nauplia, Argos, Kiveri and Thermisi remained in Theodore's hands until 11 June 1394, when he ceded them to Venice. After Maria's death in 1393, her uncle Engelbert—who had originally received the lordship in 1356—claimed her inheritance, but when the Venetians provided the document of sale, and suggested that they would be willing to cede the castles if he could pay for their defence and reimburse Venice for the costs of their purchase and the ongoing siege of Argos, he dropped his claim. Argos remained in Venetian hands until conquered by the Ottomans at the outbreak of the First Ottoman–Venetian War in 1463, while of all Venetian territories in the Morea, Nauplia persisted longest, and was surrendered to the Ottomans in 1540 after the conclusion of the Third Ottoman–Venetian War. Lords of Argos and Nauplia Otto I de la Roche (1212 – before 1234) as Lord of Athens Otto II de la Roche