Bragadin joined the "Fanti da Mar" Corps or marines of the Republic of Venice. In 1569, he was appointed Captain-General of Famagusta in Cyprus and led the Venetian resistance to the Ottoman–Venetian War (1570–1573). He was executed in a horrific manner for his alleged crimes of abusing and killing Turkish captives in August 1571 after the Ottoman Empire took Famagusta, the fall of which signalled the end of Western presence in the Mediterranean island for the next three centuries.