Great Council of Venice
The offer arrived in Venice at an opportune time. The election of Francesco Foscari on 15 April 1423 as Doge of Venice had placed a proponent of a more aggressive and unyielding stance against Ottoman expansionism at the head of the Republic. But the majority of the Great Council of Venice was still dominated by the more cautious tendencies of the merchant nobility that ruled the Republic and they feared the disruption to trade that open war with the Ottomans would bring. Since the Fourth Crusade, the Venetians had consciously adopted a policy of gradually acquiring outposts, fortresses and islands from the collapsing Byzantine Empire, providing bases that secured Venice's valuable trading links with the East. For some time Venice had viewed Thessalonica as a possible expansion target, especially as Constantinople seemed to be on the verge of falling to the Turks. Thus in 1419, Venice re-established a consulate in the city, headed by a local Greek, George Philomati, and after his death in 1422 by his brother Demetrios.