The long reign of Gradenigo (1289-1311) is one of the most important in the annals of Venice. By the fall of Acre in 1291 the doom of the Christian power in the Holy Land was sealed, and Venice, whose interest in the Crusades and in the Latin dominion over Syria was frankly a commercial one, turned the new situation to her own advantage. Her policy was to frustrate her rivals, the Genoese. To the scandal of Christendom a treaty was concluded with the infidel in 1299, and ere long slaves and materials of war were openly sold by the Venetians in their ports. The Sultan declared in the charter his steadfast will that the Venetians should be protected and honoured beyond all people in the world, and entitled to the sole right of a Saracen escort for Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem. The Genoese found themselves squeezed out of the coast towns, and Venice in exclusive possession of the Syrian trade. [Illustration: ON THE GRAND CANAL.] The Pope, anxiously revolving the sad vicissitudes of the Christians in the east, turned to Venice and Genoa, praying them for the love of Christ to combine and save the fair island of Cyprus, still unpolluted by the presence of the infidels. But the lion of St Mark was a fierce yoke-fellow. The more restricted the field of influence became between Venice and Genoa the more bitter grew their jealousy. Two fleets were, however, fitted out in response to the Papal appeal. Their prows had scarcely touched Cyprian waters when a fight took place between some of the allied ships, and to the edification of the Saracen the two greatest maritime powers of Christendom were soon engaged in mutual destruction. Unavailing efforts were made by the Church to heal the strife, for while the Dominican envoys were treating at Venice the feverish activity at the arsenal told too plainly that the time for the peacemaker was not yet come. Rumours soon reached Venice of an alliance between the Genoese and the Greeks and of the threatened closure of the Dardanelles to her ships. She delayed no longer to strike. All her seamen between sixteen and sixty were enrolled; her patrician houses were called to furnish their part of a new armament, and on October 7th, 1294, the fleet was under sail. The admiral, Marco Besegio, sighted the Genoese fleet under Nicolo Spinola off Ayas, in Asia Minor. The enemy was inferior in strength, and Besegio, too confident perhaps of victory, was out-manœuvred, defeated with heavy losses, and himself slain. The Genoese, to clinch their victory, despatched a mighty fleet of nigh two hundred sail manned by forty-five thousand men, among whom were the chiefs of their noble houses. Meanwhile Venice, shrewdly calculating that the heavy financial strain involved in the maintenance of so huge an armament would soon wear the enemy out, steadily equipped a new fleet, called out a fresh levy, and concentrated her force on the defence of the lagoons. Before a year was past the Genoese, after