History of the Republic of Venice to command such a galley. By 1563, the population of Venice had dropped to about 168,000 people. With the outbreak of another war with the Ottomans in 1570, Venice, Spain and the Pope formed the Holy League, which was able to assemble a grand fleet of 208 galleys, 110 of which were Venetian, under the command of John of Austria, half-brother of Philip II of Spain. The Venetians were commanded by Sebastiano Venier. The Turkish fleet, equal in number to the allied one, had sailed up the Adriatic as far as Lesina, and then returned to Lepanto in the Gulf
Fall of the Republic of Venice empire, in return for French possession of the Austrian Netherlands. On the same day, however, events precipitated themselves at Verona. The population, and a part of the Venetian troops quartered there, tired of French arrogance and oppression, rose in revolt. The episode, known as the "Veronese Easter", quickly reduced the occupation troops to the defensive, reducing them to the city's forts. On 20 April, although the ban on foreign warships entering the Lagoon of Venice had recently been reiterated, the French frigate "Le Libérateur d'Italie" ("Italy's Liberator") tried to enter the Porto di Lido, the northern entry to the Lagoon.