Vittorioso ad Alessandretta? L’«impresa navale» di Kenelm Digby fra autopromozione, miti nazionali e frammenti di realtà

Abstract

On 21 June 1628, in the Gulf of Alexandretta (Iskenderun, Turkey) Sir Kenelm Digby, an English gentleman privateer, had a clash with two Venetian galleasses and two galleons they were escorting. Digby intended to plunder some French freighters riding at anchor and, as the Venetians commanders objected to this, a long cannonade ensued. It was no more than a skirmish, with no definite winner or loser, but (thanks to some arousing reports penned by Sir Kenelm himself) British public opinion looked on it as an out-and-out naval triumph of England over the allegedly invincible Venetian galleasses, and as such the episode was handed down in historiography. This paper tries to figure out what really happened on that day, how contemporary witnesses and later historians interpreted the episode and which accessory circumstances could have prompted the involved people to act as they did.