page_title: Battle of Girolata
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Girolata / Background
context_page_description: The Battle of Girolata was a naval action fought between Genoese, Spanish, and Ottoman ships on 15 June 1540 in the Gulf of Girolata, on the west coast of the island of Corsica, amidst the war between Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and Suleiman the Magnificent. A Spanish squadron of 21 galleys led by the Genoese Gianettino Doria and the Spaniard Berenguer de Requesens surprised an Ottoman squadron of 11 galleys, anchored at Girolata, led by the Ottoman admiral Dragut, whom the commander of the Ottoman Navy, Hayreddin Barbarossa, had committed to raid the Italian coast after his victories in the Adriatic sea the year before. As the crews of the Ottoman warships were ashore, distributing the booty from recent raids, the Spanish-Genoese fleet easily overtook them, taking all 11 Ottoman galleys and making 1,200 prisoners, among them Dragut, who was carried to Genoa and put, together with his captains, to row in Andrea Doria's galleys.
context_section_description: In 1538 the Ottoman fleet, led by Hayreddin Barbarossa, dealt a decisive blow to the Spanish and Italian Holy League assembled by Pope Paul III by defeating its fleet at the Battle of Preveza, off the Epirote coast, and by taking Castelnuovo. As in 1540, Suleiman the Magnificent was preparing a land campaign in Hungary, the Ottoman navy was however short of means and it could not take the field. Barbarossa then detached to the Western Mediterranean waters the leader of his scout squadron, Turgut Reis, known as Dragut, with the task of raiding the Italian coast and disturbing Spanish shipping in a privateering mission. Dragut started his cruise by capturing five Venetian galleys off the island of Paxos, near Corfu. The Venetians could not retaliate, as they signed a peace treaty with the Sultan shortly afterwards.
  In response to the Ottoman threat, Charles V's admiral Andrea Doria gathered a fleet of roughly 80 galleys at the harbour of Messina to clear the Ottoman privateers from the Western Mediterranean, and following the example of Pompey in his war against the Cilician pirates, he divided his ships into five squadrons which he assigned to patrol different regions. Andrea Doria himself sailed from Messina to Tunis in late April at the head of 55 galleys, expecting to surprise Dragut at his station off Djerba. However, Barbarossa's lieutenant had moved faster. The Genoese admiral had detached his relative Erasmo Doria to guard the Balearic Islands in command of 10 galleys, his nephew Gianettino Doria and Berenguer de Requesens to patrol off Corsica and Sardinia with 21 galleys, Fadrique de Toledo to defend the Gulf of Naples with 11, and the Count of Anguillara, helped by the Knights of Malta, to protect Sicily with 17.
  It was Gianettino's and Requesens' squadron which found the trail of Dragut's galleys. The Ottoman squadron was first reportedly seen off Bonifacio and later, when Dragut attacked the island of Capraia, the cannonade was heard aboard the Genoese and Spanish galleys. Fishermen who had fled from the Ottomans warned Doria and Requesens that Dragut had sailed to Cape Corso and, later, that his squadron was anchored at the Gulf of Girolata.
caption: Andrea Doria, portrait by Jan Matsys (1555). Galleria di Palazzo Bianco, Genoa.
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