Andrea Doria

Doria was born at Oneglia from the ancient Genoese family the Doria di Oneglia, a branch of the noble Doria family, who played a major role in the history of the Republic since the 12th century. His parents were related: Ceva Doria, co-lord of Oneglia, and Caracosa Doria, of the Doria di Dolceacqua branch.^[6] Orphaned at an early age, he became a soldier of fortune, serving first in the papal guard and then under various Italian princes.^[7]

In 1503, he fought in Corsica in the service of the Genoese Navy, at that time under French vassalage. However, after the Battle of Ravenna of 1512, he turned against the Francophile government of Genoa represented by Gian Fregoso.^[8] With 46, despite having no previous naval experience, Doria was apponted admiral and took upon him reorganizing the existent Genoese fleet. A French invasion of Genoa forced him and his fleet to escape to La Spezia. With the French defeat in Novara the following year, Doria returned and conquered the local French garrison in Briglia, expelled them from Genoa and helped Ottaviano Fregoso to become the new Doge.^[9]

Doria also scoured the Mediterranean in command of the Genoese fleet, waging war on the Turks and the Barbary pirates. When a Turk fleet led by the brothers Aruj and Hayreddin Barbarossa, coming from a failed siege of the Spanish port of Béjaïa, captured a Genoese ship in 1512, Doria attacked the brothers' base in La Goulette with twelve galleys, sacking the place and destroying the local Turk fleet.^[10][11] In the meanwhile, however, Genoa was recaptured by the French, as a new change of tide in Marignano forced Fregoso to pledge Genoa to King Francis I of France in 1515. Doria focused in continuing his actions against Muslims, defeated another Turk fleet in at Pianosa in 1519.^[7]

In 1522, during the Italian War between France and the empire of Charles V, King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, Genoa was conquered and sacked by imperial troops under the command of Prospero Colonna and Fernando d'Ávalos, forcing Doria to escape with the fleet again. Taking refuge in Monaco, he helped the French defend Marseille, but the war came to an abrupt end when Francis I was captured by the imperial army in Pavia. Doria prepared a plan to try to rescue him, but Francis ordered him to refrain.^[12]

Doria then clashed with Francis' regent, Anne de Montmorency, and abandoned French service, forming a naval mercenary fleet. However, he ended up siding with France again when Pope Clement VIII formed the League of Cognac to oppose Charles V, for which Doria was hired to command their armada while Giovanni delle Bande Nere did the same in their land army. Doria defeated a bigger Spanish fleet in Corsica and planned to conquer Genoa, still under imperial rule, but it was never carried on. With Giovanni's death in action and the sack of Rome by mutinied imperial troops, the situation worsened for the League of Cognac, who depended on Doria more than ever.^[13]

In 1528, the League's armada, under the command of Doria and his nephew, Filippino Doria, crushed a Spanish fleet on 28 April 1528 at the Battle of Capo d'Orso, capturing the enemy commanders Alfonso d'Avalos and Ascanio Colonna. However, Andrea became dissatisfied with his treatment at the hands of Francis, who was mean about payment and replaced Doria for the French admiral François de la Rochefoucault. Meanwhile, d'Avalos capitalized on the chance to try convince Doria to switch sides, leading Doria to refuse to hand d'Avalos and Colonna to Francis as he asked. Charles V and Doria exchanged letters, and eventually the Genoese deserted the French for the emperor on June 1528.^[14]

Without Doria's fleet, the League collapsed. In September 1528 Andrea Doria and his forces drove the French out of Genoa and were triumphantly received by the city.^[15] Charles appointed him grand admiral, prince of Melfi and Marquis of Tursi in reward for his services. He found Doria an invaluable ally in the wars with Francis I, and through him extended his domination over the whole of Italy. He continued to serve the emperor in various wars, in which he was generally successful and always active, although now over seventy years old.^[7][7]

Doria reformed the constitution in an aristocratic sense, eliminating the factions that had plagued the republic in the past centuries, and constituted a new oligarchic form of government composed of the city’s principal aristocratic families,^[7] creating 28 Alberghi or "clans". The 28 Alberghi that formed this new ruling class included the Cybo, Doria, Fieschi, Giustiniani, Grimaldi, Imperiale, Pallavicino, and Spinola families.^[16][17]

He refused offers to take the lordship of Genoa and even the dogeship, but accepted the position of "perpetual censor", and exercised predominant influence in the councils of the republic until his death.^[7] The title "censor" in this context was modelled on its meaning in the Roman Republic, i.e., a highly respected senior public official (see Roman censor), rather than its modern meaning having to do with censorship. He was given two palaces, many privileges, and the title of Liberator et Pater Patriae (Liberator and Father of His Country).^[7] He established himself in his newly-renovated villa in Fassolo, a Renaissance masterpiece known as Villa del Principe, in an area just outside the now demolished Porta di San Tomaso, where he resided until his death.^[18]

To protect the restored republic from future foreign attacks, Andrea Doria sponsored the construction of a new city wall, which was built in the third decade of the sixteenth century, on a design by the military engineer Giovanni Maria Olgiati. This new city wall actually followed the path of the previous 14th-century walls but replaced the old square-plan towers and walls with new curtain-shaped curtain walls and triangular bastions.^[19]

Actions against the Ottomans and Barbary pirates ocuppied again much of Doria's time.^[20] In 1529, Spanish captain Rodrigo de Portundo was defeated by Aydin and Salih, lieutenants of Hayreddin Barbarossa. With hired French mercenaries, Doria launched an attack on Cherchell, Barbarossa's protectorate, sacking the port and freeing many Christian prisoners, although the mercenaries' undiscipline drove him abandon them to their fate when his fleet had to sail off before the Turk's arrival.^[21][10][22]

In September 1532, in response to the Turk invasion of Hungary in April, Andrea attacked the Ottoman positions in the Aegean Sea with a Spanish-Genoese fleet of 48 galleys and 35 vessels. He reached to the Dardanelles and the Peloponnese, capturing Corone and Patras. The Ottomans attempted to recover Corone the following year with a grand armada captained by Lütfi Pasha, but Doria defeated them, outmaneuvering the Turks by towing his ships with his galleys in absence of wind.^[23][10]

Barbarossa launched his own offensives from Algiers and Tunis, helped by his Jewish lieutenant Sinan Reis. In 1535, Charles V called for the conquest of Tunis, with Doria sharing the naval command with another rising admiral, Álvaro de Bazán the Elder. The fleet succeeded in taking Tunis, but Barbarossa managed to escape.^[24] Charles intended to continue the campaign taking Algiers next, but the weather impeded it. One year later, Babarossa attacked and sacked the Balearic Islands by disguising 27 galleasses as Spanish vessels, leading Doria to give him chase with 30 galleys, with orders of Charles V to bring the Turk privateer dead or alive, but again Barbarossa escaped.^[25]

After the death of Francesco I Sforza death in 1535, Charles V and Francis I clashed again for the succession of the Duchy of Milan. Doria was vital for the emperor to secure the friendship of the Médicis of Florence, favoring the ascension of Cosimo I.^[26] In a shocking move, Francis allied with the Ottomans, installing Barbarossa with a Franco-Turk fleet in Marseille, although the defenses built by Doria dissuaded them from trying to take Genoa.

In July 1537, Doria was near Naxos agains 12 Turk galleys captained by Ali Tschalebi, whom the Genoese captured. Upon finding out Barbarossa was now coming for him with a huge fleet of 135 galleys, Doria retreated to Messina, where he was forced to hear how Barbarossa sacked Apulia. The Ottomans boasted they might be able to choose their own Pope some day, but in reality their fleet had to be diverted against Venice due to the outbreak of the Ottoman-Venetian War.^[27]

In February 1538, Pope Paul III called for peace among the Christians and the formation of a Holy League (comprising the Papal States, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, the Republic of Venice, and the Maltese Knights) against the Turks. Although Francis did not join, the Italian War came to its end with the Truce of Nice, and he accepted to break his alliance with the Ottomans.

In 1538, being given command of the Holy League, Doria sailed off with 80 Venetian galleys, 36 from the Vatican States, 30 from Spain, as well as 50 naos, with the goal to seek the encounter with Barbarossa's fleet and defeated him. He tracked Barbarossa and his lieutenants, which included Sinan, Salih and Dragut or Turgut Reis, to the strait of Corinth, where he blockaded them. However, infighting within the League, along with blundering on Doria's part, caused the defeat of their fleet in the subsequent Battle of Preveza in September 1538. This victory secured Turkish dominance over the eastern Mediterranean for the next 33 years, until the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.^{[citation needed]}

Doria was harshly criticized for his lack of strategy, which might have obeyed to Spain and Genoa being unwilling to commit themselves in defense of the politically distant Venice, not any less to the fact that Doria owned many of the ships employed.^[28] To compensate the defeat, they captured Castelnuovo, but Charles and Venice argued about who would keep the place, causing the practical disbandment of the Holy League. The garrison, initially conceived as a the beachhead of an invasion of the Ottoman Balkans, was besieged and defeated by Barbarossa in the notorious Siege of Castelnuovo.

In 1540, his nephew Giannettino Doria obtained a big victory in the Battle of Girolata, capturing Dragut, the most eminent Turkish captain other than Babarossa. Andrea had him as a galley slave in his flagship during four years.^[29] Around this time, an usual partner to Doria, Bernardino de Mendoza, achieved another victory over Ottoman privateers in the Battle of Alborán.

Andrea, Giannettino and Mendoza were recruited by Charles V in 1541 to launch an expedition to Algiers, a new attempt to capture Barbarossa. Doria tried to warn the emperor of the terrible timing of the move, as it was autumn and the Mediterranean weather was dangerous, but he was not heeded, and the Genoese reluctantly accepted to participate anyways.^[30][31] The reslt was a fiasco, as a storm disintegrated he imperial fleet, although the Dorias managed to secure the rereat of a large part of the fleet, taking a large effort to reorganize the other Genoese captains.^[32]

In 1542, the now allied French and Ottomans sacked Nice, being chased away by Doria, who captured four ships. In May, Hayreddin Barbarossa attacked Reggio with 110 galleys, linking with the French fleet in Marseille, where command was shared with Francis of Bourbon. Again, Barbarossa and Bourbon conquered and sacked Nice, except by its citadel, and retreated with the arrival of Doria, who disembarked a land army led by Alfonso d'Avalos in Villefranche. Nice was recovered, while the Franco-Turk fleet moved to Antibes.^[33] Meanwhile, Bazán the Elder destroyed the French Atlantic fleet in Muros Bay, where his son Álvaro de Bazán was present.

To great outrage of Christendom, in 1544 Doria freed Dragut in exchange for a rich rescue of 3,000 ducats paid by Barbarossa, who had also threatened with blockading Genoa.^[34] Doria was probably trying to gain the Ottoman's sympathy in the case one of his own relatives was captured, although he eventually repented his decision due to Dragut's many future successes.^[35] The Genoese then advised d'Avalos not to look for a direct battle against the French, but due to the bad state of their relationship, d'Avalos rebuked him and did it nonetheless, being defeated in Ceresole. Doria helped impeding the French from capitalizing on the chance, attacking the French positions in the coast.^[33]

After the Peace of Crépy between Francis and Charles in 1544, Doria hoped to end his days in quiet. However, his great wealth and power, as well as the arrogance of his nephew and heir Giannettino Doria, had made him many enemies, and in 1547 the Fieschi conspiracy to dislodge his family from power took place. Giannettino was killed, but the conspirators were defeated, and Doria showed great vindictiveness in punishing them, seizing many of their fiefs for himself. He was also implicated in the murder of Pier Luigi Farnese, duke of Parma and Piacenza, who had helped Fieschi.^[7]

Other conspiracies followed, of which the most important was that of Giulio Cybo (1548), but all failed. Although Doria was ambitious and harsh, he was a patriot and successfully opposed Emperor Charles's repeated attempts to have a citadel built in Genoa and garrisoned by Spaniards; neither blandishments nor threats could win him over to the scheme.^[7]

Nor did age lessen his energy, for in 1550, aged 84, he again put to sea to confront the Muslim armadas, as although Barbarossa had retired in 1545, Dragut and the Barbary pirates continued being a threat. Doria and Mendoza captured Mahdia, which Dragut had recently conquered and turned into his base. In the citadel was captured Hesar, a nephew to Dragut.^[36] Doria reinforced the garrison the next year, after which he chased Turgut and his 20 galleys to Djerba, blockading the privateer with few sheeps in an inlet, although Dragut escaped, digging a channel and dragging his ships overland to it.^[37] Disgruntled, Doria sacked Djerba.^[34]

In 1552 the Ottoman fleet under the command of Dragut defeated the Spanish-Italian fleet of Charles V under the command of Doria in the Battle of Ponza (1552). The war between France and the Empire having broken out once more, the French seized Corsica in the Invasion of Corsica (1553), then administered by the Genoese Bank of Saint George. Doria was again summoned, and he spent two years (1553–1555) on the island fighting the French with varying fortune.^[7]

He returned to Genoa for good in 1555, and being very old and infirm, he gave over the command of the galleys to his great-nephew Giovanni Andrea Doria, the son of Giannettino Doria, who conducted an expedition against Tripoli, but proved even more unsuccessful than his great-uncle had been at Algiers, barely escaping with his life after losing the Battle of Djerba against the Turkish fleet of Piyale Pasha and Turgut Reis. Andrea Doria left his estates to Giovanni Andrea. The family of Doria-Pamphili-Landi is descended from Giovanni Andrea Doria and bears his title of Prince of Melfi.^[7]

Several ships were named in honour of the Admiral:

• Two United States Navy ships named USS Andrew Doria (1775 and 1908).^[38][39]
• The Italian ironclad Andrea Doria, completed in 1891, which served in the late 19th and early 20th century, was decommissioned in 1911, and served as the floating battery GR104 during World War I before being scrapped in 1929.^[40]
• The Italian battleship Andrea Doria, completed in 1916, which served in both World War I and World War II and was decommissioned in 1956.^[41]
• The Italian passenger liner SS Andrea Doria, which was launched in 1951, had her maiden voyage in 1953 and sank following a collision in 1956.^[42]
• The Italian missile cruiser Andrea Doria, built in 1964 and decommissioned in 1991.^[43]
• The Italian Horizon-class destroyer Andrea Doria, commissioned in 2007.^[44]

A painted sheepskin for The Magnificent and Excellent Andrea Doria hangs at The Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island, US.^{[citation needed]}

• Genoa
• Genoese Navy
• Republic of Genoa
• Villa del Principe
• Doria (family)

• Granata, Mario, L'ammiraglio della Superba, 1955
• Jamieson, Alan G. (2013). Lords of the Sea: A History of the Barbary Corsairs. Reaktion Books. ISBN 9781861899460.
• Lane-Pool, Stanley (2011). Los corsarios berberiscos (in Spanish). Renacimiento. ISBN 9788484726760.
• Lingua, Paolo, Andrea Doria, 2006

  Media related to Andrea Doria at Wikimedia Commons