For sixteen years Venice was continually at war in the East. While, in fact, all Europe was vitally interested in the outcome of this struggle, yet all Europe failed to offer any aid to Venice. It was assumed that since the {276} Republic had so largely profited by her relations in the Levant, she alone must bear the burden of the struggle. In the beginning she had promises of support, but all these failed her at the outset. She spent men and money, and fought with her accustomed bravery until she had no more to give. Then, in 1479, she made the best terms for peace that were possible, only to be cursed for perfidy to Christianity, and to be accused of cowardly submission to the Turks, in order to use all her strength to increase her territory on the mainland of Italy. Unfortunately this accusation seemed to be well founded, when, in 1481, the Republic declared war against Ferrara, whose territory separated Venice from her own dependency of Ravenna. The Venetians were most patriotic in the support of this war. They wished to reinstate themselves in their own good opinion after all their humiliation in the East, and with the support of the Pope all went to their advantage in the beginning. But soon Sixtus IV. not only abandoned them, but placed them under an interdict because they did not lay down their arms at his request; and in the end the peace of Bagnolo was made in 1484, the Republic having gained very little in return for the vast expense of 1,200,000 ducats, great losses of men and ships, and a mortification of her pride which vastly increased the bitterness of the result. All these misfortunes occurred at the time when travellers and chroniclers who wrote of Venice failed to find words rich enough in their meaning to convey the just impression of the magnificence of the "Queen of the Adriatic,"--the time of which Brown says:--