33. In 1298 the Genoese made elaborate preparations for a great blow at
the enemy, and fitted out a powerful fleet which they placed under the
command of LAMBA DORIA, a younger brother of Uberto of that illustrious
house, under whom he had served fourteen years before in the great rout of
the Pisans at Meloria.
The rendezvous of the fleet was in the Gulf of Spezia, as we learn from
the same pithy Genoese poet who celebrated Ayas. This time the Genoese
were bent on bearding St. Mark's Lion in his own den; and after touching
at Messina they steered straight for the Adriatic: -
"Now, as astern Otranto bears,
Pull with a will! and, please the Lord,
Let them who bragged, with fire and sword,
To waste our homesteads, look to theirs!"[13]
On their entering the gulf a great storm dispersed the fleet The admiral
with twenty of his galleys got into port at Antivari on the Albanian
coast, and next day was rejoined by fifty-eight more, with which he
scoured the Dalmatian shore, plundering all Venetian property. Some
sixteen of his galleys were still missing when he reached the island of
Curzola, or Scurzola as the more popular name seems to have been, the
Black Corcyra of the Ancients - the chief town of which, a rich and
flourishing place, the Genoese took and burned.[14] Thus they were engaged
when word came that the Venetian fleet was in sight.
