Barberigo, with his light galleys, now arrived upon the spot, and emptied their loads of stone into the passage around the wreck.  The Genoese kept up a heavy fire with their artillery, many of the galleys were sunk, and numbers of the Venetians drowned, or killed by the shot.

Nevertheless, they worked on unflinchingly.  As soon as the pile of stones had risen sufficiently for the men to stand upon them, waist deep, they took their places upon it, and packed in order the stones that their comrades handed them, and fixed heavy chains binding the whole together.

The work was terribly severe.  The cold was bitter.  The men were badly fed, and most of them altogether unaccustomed to hardships.  In addition to the fire from the enemy’s guns, they were exposed to a rain of arrows, and at the end of two days and nights they were utterly worn out and exhausted, and protested that they could do no more.  Pisani, who had himself laboured among them in the thickest of the danger, strove to keep up their spirits by pointing out the importance of their work, and requested the doge to swear on his sword that, old as he was, he would never return to Venice unless Chioggia was conquered.

The doge took the oath, and for the moment the murmuring ceased; and, on the night of the 24th, the channel of Chioggia was entirely choked from shore to shore.  On that day, Corbaro succeeded in sinking two hulks in the passage of Brondolo.  Doria, who had hitherto believed that the Venetians would attempt nothing serious, now perceived for the first time the object of Pisani, and despatched fourteen great galleys to crush Corbaro, who had with him but four vessels.  Pisani at once sailed to his assistance, with ten more ships, and the passage was now so narrow that the Genoese did not venture to attack, and Corbaro completed the operation of blocking up the Brondolo passage.  The next day the Canal of Lombardy was similarly blocked; and thus, on the fourth day after leaving Venice, Pisani had accomplished his object, and had shut out the Genoese galleys from the sea.

But the work had been terrible, and the losses great.  The soldiers were on half rations.  The cold was piercing.  They were engaged night and day with the enemy, and were continually wet through, and the labour was tremendous.

A fort had already been begun on the southern shore of the port of Brondolo, facing the convent, which Doria had transformed into a citadel.  The new work was christened the Lova, and the heaviest guns in the Venetian arsenal were planted there.  One of these, named the Trevisan, discharged stones of a hundred and ninety-five pounds in weight, and the Victory was little smaller.  But the science of artillery was then in its youth, and these guns could only be discharged once in twenty-four hours.