Battle of Pianosa

Raiding had for long been part of the life of the Mediterranean, the last decades of the Middle Ages had seen numerous famous corsairs harassing both the coastal populations and shipping activities, but the turn of the 16th century coincided with a marked surge of the phenomenon.[1][2] Most notably, several captains established bases on the North African coast where strong corsair flotillas left every year for months-long cruises.[3] During the spring and summer, they raided and pillaged the coastal regions and the maritime trade of Mediterranean Europe.[4] Among the most famous Barbary corsairs of the region at the time were Hayreddin Barbarossa and Kurtoğlu Muslihiddin.[5] The latter set up his base of operation in the Tunisian town of Bizerte with the support of the local Hafsid Dynasty. The prowess of Kurtoğlu at sea attracted the attention of the Ottoman government and he was offered the command of the Turkish fleet in 1516. After Kurtoğlu Muslihiddin left North Africa, command in Bizerte was assumed by another captain (reis), Kaid Ali (literally Ali the Boss) who soon proved as much a scourge for the Europeans as his predecessor had been.[6] The Bizertine flotilla had grown strong enough to be a threat not only for the merchant ships and the coast villages but even for military vessels. In a battle in mid-September 1518, Kaid Ali managed to defeat and capture the flagship galley (Capitana) of the Pope and to take the admiral of the papal fleet, Paolo Vettori, near Mont’Argentario, on the Tuscan coast.[7]

For the most part, the European Christian powers were too occupied fighting each other to pay much heed to the rather small-scale predation of the Barbary corsairs. Spain, for instance, notably diminished the resources allocated to the fight against the North African raiders during the 1510s, considering French expansionism as a much greater threat to its security.[8] The corsairs were only taken seriously by lesser coastal powers such as Genoa and the Papal States in particular because they directly menaced the all-important trade routes upon which their economies and grain supplies depended.[9][10] In the early spring 1519, aware of the arrival of Kaid Ali's flotilla in the Tyrrhenian Sea, the Genoese Republic entrusted the defence of its coastline to a local captain, the nobleman Andrea Doria, who had acquired a good reputation fighting in Corsica for the Republic. Mindful of the difficulty of the task at hand, Andrea Doria demanded that the four galleys of the Republic be reinforced with another two. His request was granted by the Genoese government but, as there were not enough prisoners and captives to provide the necessary rowers to the two new boats, free oarsmen were recruited (known as buonavoglia) to complement the rowing crew.[11]

Andrea Doria as Neptune

Filippino Doria

The Genoese fleet left its base mid-April and headed south into the Tyrrhenian Sea looking for corsairs. On April 25, in the Tuscan archipelago, near the island of Pianosa, the Genoese ships met the flotilla of Kaid Ali. More numerous and with the support of a favourable strong southern wind (sirocco), the Barbary corsairs were at a clear advantage. Andrea Doria had his galleys turn face and flee while the Bizertine began to pursue. The chase went on for about 20 nautical miles and probably 4 hours. The strong wind put the larger and more seaworthy Genoese ships at an advantage. They reached the westernmost cape of the island of Elba ahead of their pursuers.[12]

Having reached Elba, the Genoese captain took advantage of a local wind pattern to change direction and head straight towards the Bizertines. However, the newly recruited free-rowers of the two additional ships lacked the skill and strength for these arduous manoeuvres and began drifting with the wind. Andrea Doria had to send two of his older galleys to tow the less experienced ships. Two-thirds of the Genoese ships were unable to face-off and run down the adversary in a timely fashion. Rather than letting the opportunity pass, Andrea Doria put his nephew Filippino Doria in charge of the four slower ships and took his main galleys, the Capitana and the Patrona, straight towards the Bizertine to pin them down before the main force arrived.[13][14]

The Genoese had more artillery than the corsairs and managed to do some damage with their cannons. However the Bizertine succeeded in grappling the Genoese ships and to board them. Hand-to-hand combat ensued. Badly outnumbered, Doria and his men managed to sustain the shock for fifteen minutes. At this point the four ships under Filippino Doria reached the thick of the fight and within half-an-hour the battle was won for the Genoese. Only three fustes of the corsairs managed to get away, the rest of the flotilla – possibly as many as 9 vessels of various sizes – were captured or sunk. The Capitana of the Pope had been recovered and was towed back to Genoa along with four other ships.[15]

The fight, as is often the case on the overcrowded galleys, had been extraordinarily violent and bloody. Italian sources mention 500 corsairs dead, this may be an overestimate but the losses on the side of the Bizertines were undoubtedly heavy. The Genoese had also suffered important casualties. One of Andrea Doria's nephews, Lazzarino Doria, was killed in action and his second-in-command Filippino Doria was wounded twice.[16][17] The Genoese only managed to take a handful of prisoners among whom, however, was the Bizertine captain Kaid Ali. Most of these captive were rapidly ransomed but Kaid Ali himself was not exchanged and was kept as a prisoner in the fortress of Pianosa until his death, in 1530.

With Kaid Ali prisoner and Kurtoğlu Muslihiddin serving the Ottomans in the East, the bulk of their men dead and most of their ships captured or sunk, the strength of the Bizertine corsair base had been broken and the city receded to the status of a very secondary raiding base, far behind the main corsair ports Tripoli and, above all, Algiers.