Giuseppe-gatteri-1669-venezia-abbandona-candia, Giuseppe Lorenzo Gatteri, 2 January 1863

Venetian history – 129: 1669 – after 22 years of siege, candia surrenders. Venice abandons candia “a miserable spectacle offered by candia, seeming rather like a tomb made up of vast ruins, than a city that resisted the effort of so many people for the course of almost three years. The inhabitants, reduced to just 4,000 of all ages and sexes, on the 26th september assigned to leave, went, emaciated and tamed by so many hardships, to captain general francesco morosini, begging him with one voice: would he transfer them to another place, no longer recognizing their homeland as squalid and deformed, and what was worse had fallen into the hands of the enemies of christ". Date: 2 January 1863.