Having wasted eight precious days, the enemy, on the 24th of August, advanced to the attack.  A Genoese force, under Doria’s brother, landed upon San Nicolo; while the Paduans attacked San Spirito and Santa Marta.  They found the besieged in readiness.  Directly the alarm was given, the Venetians flocked to the threatened points, and repulsed the enemy with slaughter.

The latter then attempted to make a junction of their forces, but Cornaro with his galleys occupied the canal, drove back the boats in which they intended to cross, and defeated the attempt.  Doria had felt certain that the movement, which was attempted under cover of night, would succeed, and his disappointment was extreme.

The Lord of Padua was so disgusted that he withdrew his troops to the mainland.  Doria remained before Venice until the early part of October, but without making another attack.  Indeed, the defences had long before become so formidable, that attack was well-nigh hopeless.  At the end of that time he destroyed all his works and fell back upon Chioggia, and determined to wait there until Venice was starved into surrender.

The suffering in the city was intense.  It was cut off from all access to the mainland behind, but occasionally a ship, laden with provisions from Egypt or Syria, managed to evade the Genoese galleys.  These precarious supplies, however, availed but little for the wants of the starving city, eked out though they were by the exertions of the sailors, who occasionally sailed across the lagoon, landed on the mainland, and cut off the supplies sent from Padua and elsewhere to the Genoese camp.

The price of provisions was so enormous, that the bulk of the people were famishing, and even in the houses of the wealthy the pressure was great.  The nobility, however, did their utmost for their starving countrymen, and the words of Pietro Mocenigo, speaking in the name of the doge to the popular assembly, were literally carried into effect.

“Let all,” he said, “who are pressed by hunger, go to the dwellings of the patricians.  There you will find friends and brothers, who will divide with you their last crust.”

So desperate, indeed, did the position become, that a motion was made by some members of the council for emigrating from the lagoons, and founding a new home in Candia or Negropont; but this proposal was at once negatived, and the Venetians declared that, sooner than abandon their city, they would bury themselves under her ruins.

So October and November passed.  Carlo Zeno had not yet arrived, but by some letters which had been captured with a convoy of provisions, it was learned that he had been achieving the most triumphant success, had swept the seas from Genoa to Constantinople, had captured a Genoese galleon valued at three hundred thousand ducats, and was at Candia.