The clash in the strait of Curzola was a bloody, one-sided affair. The brilliant Genoese admiral, Lamba Doria, a member of a swaggeringly famous noble family, had significantly fewer ships than his opposite number, Andrea Dandolo—a relative of the old doge Enrico Dandolo who had burned Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade. But Doria had luck and the tides with him. As the galleys clashed oars, his captains drove the Venetian ships into shallow waters, where many were run aground. The Genoese boarded the stricken enemy vessels, slaughtering and taking prisoners as they pleased, before
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