The Italian city-states, especially the Republic of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice, had been interested in the islands of the Aegean long before the Fourth Crusade.

He arranged for the loan of eight galleys from the Venetian Arsenal, set anchor in the harbour of Potamides (port) (now Pyrgaki, in the southwest of Naxos), and largely captured the island.

Sanudo rebuilt a strong fortress and divided the island into 56 provinces, which he shared out as fiefs among the leaders of his men, most of whom were highly autonomous and paid their own expenses.

He held in his personal possession Paros, Antiparos, Milos, Sifnos, Kythnos, Ios, Amorgos, Kimolos, Sikinos, Syros, and Pholegandros.

[5] The institution of European feudalism caused little disruption to the local islanders[citation needed], who were familiar with the rights of a landowner class under the Byzantine system of the pronoia.

The significant legal distinctions between the Byzantine pronoia and feudalism were of little immediate consequence for those who farmed the land or fished the waters in question.

The Venetians brought the Catholic Church with them, but, as they were a minority of habitually absentee landowners, most of the population remained Greek Orthodox.

Marco Sanudo himself established a Latin archbishopric on Naxos, but in contrast to his successors, did not attempt to forcibly convert the Greek Orthodox majority.

of the Latin Archipelago center on the family histories of Sanudo and Dandolo, Ghisi, Crispo, Sommaripa, Venier and Quirini, Barozzi and Gozzadini.

Marco II Sanudo lost many of the islands, except Naxos and Paros, to the forces of the renewed Byzantine Empire under the admiral Licario in the late 13th century.