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In 1489 following the abdication of Queen Caterina the Venetians installed a military governor on Cyprus. They had seen the coming threat of the Ottoman Empire, and saw Cyprus purely as an frontier outpost. Their rule was even more oppressive for the Cypriots than the Lusignan dynasty had been before.

The Venetians concentrated their effort on refurbishing the island's fortifications at Nicosia, Famagusta and Kyrenia. Military architects from Europe were brought in to execute the new projects. They hoped to be able to protect their trade interests from the East from the Ottoman threat.

The Venetians plan of using Cyprus as a fortress were ruined by the advent of a new sea route to India via the Cape of Good Hope. Cyprus became a Venetian white elephant, and of little further strategic use. In 1570, following an ultimatum from Sultan Selim II, 200,000 Ottoman troops invaded Cyprus at Larnaca under the command of Lala Mustapha Pasha. The city of Nicosia held out for six weeks before being overrun and sacked. Kyrenia surrendered without a fight, and Pasha went on to lay siege to Famagusta. The city held out for almost a year before eventually negotiating terms of surrender with the Ottomans. Shortly after the Venetians handed over the island to the Ottoman Empire in September 1571. Although the Turkish fleet was destroyed by the Europeans in October that year they did not go on to liberate Cyprus, which remained in the Ottoman Empire for the next 300 years.