page_title: Capture of Mahdia (1550)
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Capture of Mahdia (1550) / Background
caption_attribution_description: Barbaria. Cartaginis sive potius Tunetani celeberrimi sinus nec non fortalitii Goleltæ Tipus quamvis deleti. Aegyptus Beschryvinge van Barbarien, Tunis ende Ægypten Relief shown pictorially. Verso pages numbered 354 and 353. Detached from Gerard Mercator&#160;: Atlas sive cosmographicae meditationes de fabrica mundi et fabricati figura. Originally published by Jodocus Hondius. (Description from: North West University Library)
context_page_description: The capture of Mahdia was an amphibious military operation that took place from June to September, 1550, during the struggle between the Ottoman Empire and the Spanish Habsburgs for the control of the Mediterranean. A Spanish naval expedition under the command of the Genoese condottiero and admiral Andrea Doria and the Spaniard Bernardino de Mendoza, supported by the Knights of Malta under their Grand Master Claude de la Sengle, besieged and captured the Ottoman stronghold of Mahdia or Mahdiye, defended by the Ottoman Admiral Turgut Reis, known as Dragut, who was using the place as a base for his piratical activities throughout the Spanish and Italian coasts. Mahdia was abandoned by Spain three years later, and all its fortifications were demolished to avoid a re-occupation of the city by the Ottomans.
context_section_description: In 1550 the Hafsid kingdom of Tunis, which stretched from the east of modern Algeria to the west of modern Libya, was mired in anarchy, ruled by a council of chieftains that fought other and none of whom recognized the authority of the King of Tunis, Hamid, who had deposed and blinded his father Hasan, a protégé of the Emperor Charles V. In the spring of 1550, taking advantage of the situation, the Ottoman admiral Turgut Reis, with the aid of one of the local leaders, took control of the coastal town of Mahdia, located atop a rock advanced into the sea and defended by two circles of walls with towers and a citadel encircled by a moat.
  In 1546, Turgut Reis, also known as Dragut, had organized a fleet of 25 brigantines and harassed the Calabrian and Neapolitan coasts as part of a campaign that culminated in the capture of Mahdia. Fearing that the town would become a base for the Barbary corsairs, which threatened the Christian shipping in the Western Mediterranean, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, supported by the Papacy and the Knights of Malta, decided to organize an expedition to capture the city. The command of the enterprise was entrusted to the Genoese admiral Andrea Doria and to Bernardino de Mendoza, Captain General of the galleys of Spain. They led a fleet of 52 galleys and 28 naos which carried on board an army led by Captain General Juan de la Vega, Viceroy of Sicily, and siege weapons and supplies provided by de la Vega himself and the Viceroy of Naples.
caption: Map of the Barbary States by Gerard Mercator. Originally published by Jodocus Hondius.
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