Under Caterina, who ruled Cyprus from 1474 to 1489, the island was controlled by Venetian merchants, and on 14 March 1489 she was forced to abdicate and sell the administration of the country to the Republic of Venice.

So, the last Crusader state became a colony of Venice, and as compensation, Catherine was allowed to retain the title of Queen and was made the Sovereign Lady of Asolo, a county in the Venetian terraferma in northern Italy, in 1489.

The bulk of Venetian Cyprus was composed of Greek Orthodox peasants who were oppressed by the Latin ruling class (related to the former Lusignan kings), and it was estimated that there were some fifty thousand serfs.

[5] The river Pedieos flowed through the Venetian walled city, but in 1567 it was diverted outside into the newly built moat for strategic reasons, due to the expected Ottoman attack.

The development of the town focused on the social lives of the wealthy people and was centered upon the "Lusignan palace", the Cathedral, the Square and the harbour.

About 60,000 troops, including cavalry and artillery, under the command of Lala Kara Mustafa Pasha landed unopposed near Limassol on July 2, 1570, and laid siege to Nicosia.

They held out for 11 months against a force that came to number more than 200,000 men, with 145 guns,[11] providing the time needed by the Pope to cobble together an anti-Ottoman league from the reluctant Christian European states.

[12] The Turks lost some 52,000 men in five major assaults in early 1571, until in summer the Venetians, despairing to receive any rescue from the homeland and on request from the local starving civilians, decided to surrender.

With provisions and ammunition running out, his soldiers able to fight reduced to just seven hundred and no sign of relief from Venice, on August 1[13] Bragadin asked for terms of surrender.

The Turkish commander, Lala Kara Mustafa Pasha, agreed to allow the survivors to safely return to Crete, but he did not keep his word: he was enraged because of his older son's death attacking so few Venetian defenders.

[citation needed] From a military point of view, the besieged garrison's perseverance required a massive effort by the Ottoman Turks, who were so heavily committed that they were unable to redeploy in time when the Holy League built up the fleet later victorious against the Muslim power at the Battle of Lepanto (1571): this was the legacy of Bragadin and his Venetians to Christianity, as Theodore Mommsen wrote.

It is noteworthy to pinpoint that this is the historical setting to Shakespeare's Othello, the play's title character being the commander of the Venetian garrison defending Cyprus against the Ottomans.