Gian Andrea Doria e Uluç Alì a Lepanto. Una riflessione sulla tattica di battaglia tra flotte di galee nel Mediterraneo del XVI secolo

Abstract

The narration of the Battle of Lepanto shows us a Pantheon of heroes, with one exception, Gian Andrea Doria, a Genoese admiral in the service of Spain, who faced the best commander of the Ottoman fleet in battle, Uluç Ali. The work that has most contributed to the affirmation of this narrative, which describes Doria as a vile coward, is Marcantonio Colonna at the Battle of Lepanto by Alberto Guglielmotti. The purpose of this contribution is to critically analyze Guglielmotti’s narrative by comparing it with different sources, to reflect on how the figure of Doria has taken shape, how it has been constructed through successive elaborations and reworkings, becoming a paradigm both in historiography and in common discourse. The study of this narrative allows us to focus on some crucial issues regarding battle tactics between fleets of galleys in the 16th-century Mediterranean and interpretations of sources.