With dwindling resources, Mehmed attacked and defeated the smaller surrounding fortresses of Žabljak Crnojevića, Drisht, and Lezha, left a siege force to starve Shkodra into surrender, and returned to Constantinople.

[16]: 305 Sultan Mehmed II had already conquered Constantinople in 1453, but now desired to dominate the Albanian coastline and be better poised to cross the Adriatic and march upon Rome.

[20]: 531 Shkodra was so important to the Empire's aims that, shortly after the siege, Ottoman chronicler Ashik Pashazade called it "the hope of passage to the lands of Italy".

Count Carlo da Braccio repulsed the invaders, but before returning to Bosnia, "the Turkish bands nevertheless did enormous damage and carried away large numbers of men and cattle."

[26]: 121  Expecting the new Ottoman attack, the Venetians prepared vigorously, sending their expert engineers to reinforce the fortifications according to the most modern techniques[20]: 614  and maintaining a garrison of about 800 mercenaries in the city.

Therefore, the Venetian Senate finally approved the locals' requests for arms and gave permission for the recruitment of warriors from the surrounding villages.

In his eyewitness testimony (book), The Siege of Shkodra, Shkodran historian Marin Barleti recorded that there may have been up to 350,000 Ottoman soldiers involved in the attack.

[29] Venice wanted to aid the besieged and sent their galleys up the Bojana River from the Adriatic Sea, but they were prevented by an Ottoman blockade at Shirgj.

Approximately 2,000 people defended the castle from within,[7]: 10–13  whereas hundreds of Albanian men and youths from the region helped from without, making guerilla attacks on the Ottoman tent camps.

[31] Other notable figures in the defense of Shkodra were Friar Bartholomew of Epirus, who had fought alongside Scanderbeg before taking holy orders and gave rousing speeches to rally the defenders,[13]: 160 [30]: 52–58  and Nicholas Moneta.

[6]: 364 The Rozafa Fortress was the focal point of the siege, the natural position and architectural reinforcements of which allowed the vastly outnumbered garrison to withstand bombardment and successive ground attacks by the besiegers.

[36] Foreseeing siege warfare, in 1458, Venetian architects Andrea and Francesco Venier and Malchiore da Imola drew plans for the citadel's reinforcements and a cistern system designed to collect rain water.

[6]: 336  According to Barleti's firsthand account, the citizens rebuilt the walls, but when they sensed that the Ottomans were approaching again with an even stronger attack, they constructed secondary fortifications and redoubts made of wood and earth.

The citizens intensified their work to fortify the citadel, adding secondary defenses in anticipation of seeing the outer walls demolished by the Ottoman cannonade.

Babinger records artillery of enormous caliber and "incendiary rockets, balls of rags impregnated with wax, sulfur, oil, and other inflammable materials" being "used for the first time".

[39] The Venetian historian Sabellicus reported anecdotal accounts from eyewitnesses inside the castle, such as: "a miserable cat, scared from her hiding place by the war-cries, fell pierced by eleven [arrow] shafts at once"[40] On July 30, the sultan gathered his general council desiring to plan a sixth ground attack, but was persuaded to halt attacks on the Shkodrans who, according to Ottoman historian Kivami, were fighting "like tigers on the mountaintops".

[29] The sultan accepted this counsel at the end of August and ordered his commanders to attack the smaller fortresses nearby who were aiding Shkodra.

Žabljak, "where Ivan Crnojevic (1465–1490), 'lord of the Zeta,' had established his court, surrendered to the governor of Rumelia almost without a blow (not by Crnojević but by his cousin and small number of men).

[43] Mehmed II ordered bridges to be built on the Bojana River to prevent Venetian ships from coming to Shkodra's aid via the Adriatic Sea.

[6]: 365  On January 25, 1479,[19]: 88–89  the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire signed the Treaty of Constantinople which ceded Shkodra to Mehmed II on the condition that the citizens be spared.

Babinger records that, after the 1479 peace treaty, the old Albanian families "such as the Arianiti, the Dukagjins, the Castriotas, the Musachi, and the Topias were obliged to take refuge in Naples, Venice, or northern Italy".

Some espoused Islam[6]: 372  and some retreated deeper into the mountains and organized occasional uprisings,[14] maintaining a "rigorous resistance" against the Ottomans until well into the seventeenth century.

So important was Albania to the Otranto invasion that Gedik Ahmet Pasha (the Ottoman army and navy commander) utilized it as a supply station and place of quick retreat.

Goffman records a 1548 battle off the coast of Préveza in which an inferior Ottoman fleet led by Barbarossa routed Andrea Doria's Catholic galleys largely because of the fresh reinforcements coming from the Ottoman-controlled Albanian shores.

According to the Albanologist Robert Elsie, an estimated thirty to fifty percent of the population of northern Albania eventually converted by the early seventeenth century.

They "converted … mainly not for theological reasons, but primarily to have the right to bear weapons, to have access in the Ottoman state high ranks, to make career in the military and to avoid higher taxes".

The façade of the former School of the Albanians in Venice contains a relief[48] created by an unknown sculptor and placed there in 1532 (it has been erroneously attributed to Vittore Carpaccio).

Говорећи о турским снагама, хроничари, по обичају, наводе огромне бројке, које достижу 150.000, па чак и 300.000 војника.

На Дриму је заробио двије млетачке галије, покупио с њих двјеста морнара, довео их под скадарске зидине и наредио да се ту сасијеку пред очима уплашених Скадрана.