At Lepanto the Ottomans now had a secure forward base on the edge of the Ionian Sea from which to conduct naval operations. During this tense time, Leonardo da Vinci arrived in the city to offer his services as a military engineer. He came with a head full of extraordinary schemes for the city’s defence – a diving suit of pig’s leather with bamboo pipes for air tubes, sketches for submarines . Whatever conversations took place came to nothing. (Two years later he was drawing up proposals to put to Sultan Bayezit for a single-span bridge across the Golden Horn.)