Mediterráneo - History Lab

File on the merits and services of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:33:04 +0000

File on the merits and services of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, containing the following documents: 1.- Memorial (apparently in Cervantes’ own handwriting) in which he sets out his merits and services performed in Italy, in the battle of Lepanto and elsewhere, on the occasion of requesting the granting of any of the four vacant posts he sets out: the accounting of the New Kingdom of Granada, the governorship of Soconusco, the accounting of the galleys of Cartagena de Indias, or the corregimiento of the city of La Paz (1590). Folios 1-2 2.- Certification given by the Duke of Sesa confirming the merits and services of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1578). Folio 3. 2.- Information at the request of Rodrigo de Cervantes, father of Miguel de Cervantes, made in Madrid before a court mayor to prove that he is his son, that he is noble, the services he contracted in Italy, that he was captive in Algiers and that because his father is poor he will not be able to ransom him (1578). Folios 4-13. 3.- Information made in Algiers before the Trinitarian Redemptor Father Fray Juan Gil and before the notary Pedro de Rivera, at the request of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, in which the services he has done and the great labours he suffered in his captivity are stated. All verified with the certification of the said redeeming father (1580). This information was made a few days after the rescue of Cervantes. Folios 14-52.

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Plan of the order of battle of the armies at the Battle of Lepanto

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:32:58 +0000

The first of the Holy League’s objectives (1571) was to recruit a navy of galleys to confront the Turkish navy. In the end, 206 galleys and 6 galleys (large, heavily armed galleys) under the command of Juan de Austria, Luis de Requesens, Álvaro de Bazán, Gianandrea Doria, Agostino Barbarigo and Marcantonio Colonna were ordered. On 7 October 1571 they were confronted by just over 300 Turkish ships off the coast of Naupactos in the Gulf of Patras. The League’s superiority was due to its cannon (the Turks much preferred to sweep the decks with arrows) and the quality of the Spanish infantry on board. The battle was nothing more than a battle of infantry on ships: the League fought in three blocks: one along the coast, with Venetian galleys commanded by Agostino Barbarigo; one in the centre, commanded directly by John of Austria and Marcantonio Colonna; and one towards the open sea, under the command of Gianandrea Doria. The reserve was commanded by Álvaro de Bazán. In the central clash the Turkish admiralty ship, the Sultana, almost took the League’s admiral, the Royal, but the help of Marcantonio Colonna’s galleys reversed the situation and the Turkish admiralty was taken, annihilating all its crew, including Admiral Ali Paschá.By the end of the day the League had sunk 50 ships, taken about 140, taken 10,000 Turkish prisoners and freed the Turkish prisoners.despite the resounding victory (“the highest occasion that the past centuries have seen, the present nor the future centuries hope to see”, in the words of Miguel de Cervantes – who fought on the galley Marquesa – in the prologue to his Don Quixote) neither the League nor Spain nor Venice knew how to profit from it. Two years later the Turkish navy had completely recovered and Venice ceded Cyprus to the Ottoman Empire.

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List of those killed and wounded on the Bahama in the Battle of Trafalgar

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:32:51 +0000

After Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in 1799, the Spanish court proved to be a weak extension of French policy. Charles IV’s latent weakness encouraged the French cause around the invasion of Portugal in 1801. A year later, France and England signed the Peace of Amiens, but their confrontation was soon to resume, and Spain became involved in this confrontation. The direct consequence of this situation was the Battle of Trafalgar (1805), where the Spanish fleet was destroyed by Admiral Nelson’s squadron. This defeat led to a further weakening of control of the overseas territories, which resulted in considerable economic collapse.

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Moroccan Embassy to Charles III

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:32:25 +0000

Painting showing the presence of a Moroccan embassy in the presence of Charles III. This is the embassy carried out by Uṯmān al-Maknāsī, envoy of the Moroccan sultan to agree both the renewal of peace between the two kingdoms and to discuss the release of Muslim captives in Spain. Diplomatic relations between Spain and the Kingdom of Morocco date back to the 16th century, when the Sa’adi monarchs needed Spanish protection to deal with Ottoman and Algerian expansion in the western Mediterranean. What makes this period, in which Charles III played a leading role in the 18th century, special is the desire on both sides to close a chapter of centuries of mutual harassment. This diplomatic encounter was followed by the extremely important peace agreements with the Ottoman Empire and later with Algeria, Tunisia and Tripoli in the 1890s. This was also a period when political primacy was no longer in the Mediterranean and treaties of peace and friendship were being forged in an attempt to promote trade.

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Plan of the Peñón Vélez de la Gomera square

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:32:25 +0000

The Vélez de Gomera rock was one of Spain’s coastal defence enclaves during the modern era. The policy of North African conquest promoted by the Catholic Monarchs was redirected by Ferdinand the Catholic, who sought to create defence rings to protect his peninsular and Italian possessions. To this end, coastal towns with ports were subdued in order to put an end to the North African corsairs. The arrival of Barbarossa and the Ottomans in North Africa meant the emergence of Algeria as a potential maritime enemy. In 1554, the Algerian beylerbey Salah Raiss restored the Sultan of Fez, who in return had to cede the Rock to the Algerians. From then on, an arraez named Yahia Raiss was stationed there and harassed the coasts of the mainland until, for unknown reasons, he abandoned the place. The Sa’adi sultans’ fear of the nearby Algerian/Ottoman presence was decisive in Muhammad Asheikh, Sultan of Marrakesh, handing over the Rock to the Spanish in exchange for protection. This handover took effect ten years later, and it has remained under Spanish sovereignty until now. Since then, it has been used as a defensive enclave against Berber raids.

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Portulan chart of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic coasts of Europe and Africa

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:30:33 +0000

The representation of the portulan chart covers the Mediterranean and the European Atlantic from Iceland and the southern coast of Scandinavia to Gambia and Cape Rouge in Africa. It includes enough ocean space to depict the Azores, Madeira, the Canary Islands and Cape Verde. There is no section of the South American coastline. There are two longitude scales over the Atlantic, in red and blue; next to the southernmost one, the authorship and date are mentioned, stating: ‘[Rubric] Joan Vespuchi, pilot of his Highness, me fecit en Sevilla, anno de 1520 [Rubric]’. Coats of arms appear over England, Scotland and Ireland. There are symbols of major cities on seven identical monuments, red over Tunis, Milan and Belgrade (possible sources of threat) and green over Jerusalem, Venice, Genoa, Seville and over Morocco. Flags over Turkey, Crimea, France and the islands of Madeira and the Canaries. The chart, whose author is Juan, or Giovanni, Vespucci, was drawn according to the Mediterranean chart kept at the Casa de la Contratación. It introduces the theme of navigation to the west across the Atlantic by means of the double graduation system, embodied in the use of two longitude scales. The coastal outlines are very similar to Gabriel de Valseca’s chart of 1439. The coastline is drawn in sepia and green, the place names in sepia and red, and the islands in red, blue and gold.

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Resources on the Battle of Lepanto

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:30:03 +0000

The link contains documents and images related to the Battle of Lepanto. The documents relate to the galleys that made up the King’s Armada in 1571, with which the battle of Lepanto was won, and the slaves that were taken from the Turkish armada as a result of the victory over the Turks. It also includes a royal decree from Philip II, in which he thanks the nobleman Álvaro de Bazán, Marquis of Santa Cruz, for his participation in the battle, and a woodcut depicting Don Juan de Austria and his lieutenant Miguel de Moncada. In the lower part of the image, the Turkish admiral Ali Baya appears in the foreground. The Battle of Lepanto was a naval battle that took place in early October 1571. It pitted the Turkish navy against the Catholic fleet, known as the Holy League, for control of the eastern Mediterranean in the face of the advance of Islam and the continuous Turkish-Berber offensives. Given the imbalance of means and resources on both sides, the Catholic fleet led by Don John of Austria, Philip II’s half-brother, defeated the Turkish-Berber armada, made up of janissaries and thousands of Christian renegades, led by Admiral Ali Baya, in just a few hours. Despite the Christian victory, Lepanto did not mark the end of Turkish power in the eastern Mediterranean.

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Fleet of Naples during the 16th century

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:30:03 +0000

The expansion of the existing frontiers in medieval times meant that a growing slave labour force entered into many of the labour transactions during the modern period. Naples and Valencia were two major enclaves in Europe during the 16th century where the Catholic Monarchy fixed its slave trade. During this time Naples was engaged in reinforcing its fleet in preparation for a Turkish offensive, relying on slave labour to cover many of the needs that would progressively arise.
In the Neapolitan fleet, forced labourers accounted for 74.6% of the oarsmen, slaves for 15.4% and volunteers for only 10%. The cost of the workers obliged to provide their services in different ways was determined by successive negotiation phases in which a representative of the viceroy, another of the asentista and the captain general Juan de Cardona had to reach an agreement in order to achieve a synthesis between the different parties and proposals.

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Total number of vessels chartered in the port of Alicante to Sicily (1718)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:20 +0000

The arrival of the Bourbon dynasty to power in Spain was accompanied by an extensive programme of military reforms. Among these, the need to reform the fleet was imperative. In this regard, the efforts of José Patiño were particularly noteworthy. The need for a powerful fleet was also consubstantial with the monarchy’s strategy of recovering some of the territories lost as a result of the treaties signed in 1700, which dismembered Hispanic territorial unity. In order to achieve this objective, the monarchy resorted to forced contracts with the private owners of merchant ships that crossed the Mediterranean and specifically its ports. In this sense, they were obliged to take their ships to strategic ports such as Cartagena, Barcelona and Alicante (with the penalty of 2,000 pesos if they did not do so) where they were placed under the orders of the competent military. English ships were the most predominant given their active trade with the Mediterranean, with French ships in second place. According to Armando Alberola Roma, this type of measure became necessary due to the delicate situation of the Spanish navy and was an effective way of transferring troops and supplies to the Italian territories they wanted to take over, such as Sicily and Corsica. This experience would later enable Philip V to assemble an extraordinary fleet to take the city of Oran in 1732.

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City and frontier between the Mediterranean and the Hapsburg Atlantic

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:28:11 +0000

This audio explains the main characteristics of walled cities in the Hapsburg period and the cities that were the maritime frontier of Spanish possessions in the Mediterranean, Atlantic and Caribbean. Firstly, the subject is approached from an architectural and construction point of view, making a comparison between the different port cities. Secondly, the importance of fortification goes beyond the simple defensive wall, they are also frontiers of power, with a strong symbolic character, where the city itself acts as a political, economic and military centre, especially in coastal cities. These are the gateways to maritime trade, in short, to the connection between continents.

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