On the part of the Hungarians war was waged on a small scale, but the Venetians employed a celebrated condottiere, Bertoldo d’Este, to head an expedition of thirty-two galleys and other ships armed by many thousand warriors. After some initial successes, the aim of the expedition failed, because of the death of Bertoldo while he was besieging the Turkish garrison at Corinth. Hitherto the steady advance of the Turks towards the south had been furthered by the anarchy and divisions of the rival races, among which the Albanians and the Greeks showed the most vitality. In Athens the ducal Florentine line brought notoriety to its closing days by the romantic record of its last duchess, the wife of Nerio II, who, when left a widow with the guardianship of her young son, fell in love with Contarini, a Venetian officer in Naples. She promised to marry him if he would get rid of his wife. The condition was accepted, and the young officer, by marrying the duchess, became master of Athens. Those who had acknowledged the old duke as their overlord, resented the introduction of Venetian rule, and appealed to Mohammed to interfere. He bestowed the duchy on a member of the reigning Florentine house, Franco, who caused his aunt, the scandal-making duchess, to be imprisoned and afterwards murdered. The commission of this crime produced discontent, and the Sultan gave orders to one of his captains to take possession of Athens. Mohammed himself took personal charge of the expedition of 1458, which was conducted with great cruelty. The Albanians were especially singled out for savage reprisals. When Tarsos fell, the Albanian soldiers taken captive were horribly tortured, and at the capitulation of Corinth the leader of the Albanian contingent was sawn asunder. A short respite was at first granted to the Greek princes, members of the house of Paleologi, who were closely allied with the last Emperor of Constantinople, but they were finally dispossessed, and by the year 1460 nothing of Greece was left in the hands of the Christian powers except four Venetian strongholds. But these were not to be spared longer.