Andrea Doria, Prince of Melfi (; ; 30 November 146625 November 1560) was an Italian statesman, and admiral, who played a key role in the Republic of Genoa during his lifetime.
Doria was considered the foremost naval leader in Europe at his time. From 1528, he served as Holy Roman Emperor Charles V's grand admiral in the Mediterranean, as well as his main shipbuilder along with Álvaro de Bazán the Elder, while also acting as a privateer with the ships he owned in order to increase his own wealth. Although he had mixed success against the power of the Ottoman admirals, his fleet helped secure the imperial naval lines between Spain and Italy. He also played a role in the development of amphibious warfare by the Spanish and Italian navies.
As a citizen of Genoa, Doria used his relationship with Charles V to both protect the republic's independence and exercise a predominant influence in its councils. He refused official charges, accepting only the title of Father of the Fatherland, and instead ruled the republic as an economic and military player. Under his reforms, the Doge's office was reduced to two years instead of being elected for life, while plebeians were declared ineligible, and the appointment was entrusted to the members of the great and the little councils. His constitutional reforms would last until the end of the republic in 1797.
His posterior historical reputation became influenced by the lens of his Venetian rivals, which accused him of unstrategic and duplicitous conduct in battle. Even then, several ships in the next centuries were named in his honour, the most famous being the Italian passenger liner , launched in 1951, which sank following a collision in 1956.
Early life
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. Orphaned at an early age, he became a soldier of fortune, serving first in the papal guard and then under various Italian princes. He soon gained enough renown for Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, the premier general of the age, to tempt him to join him.
In the service of France 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.Francesco Guicciardini, Storia d'Italia, Lib. XI, chapter 9, At age 46, despite having no previous naval experience, Doria was appointed admiral and took it upon himself to reorganize the existing 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.
Doria also scoured the Mediterranean in command of the Genoese fleet, waging war on the Turks and the Barbary pirates. When a 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 ships in port. 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 his actions against Muslims, defeated another Turkish fleet led by Caid Ali or Cadolin at Pianosa in 1519, capturing his ships for his own fleet.
Italian Wars
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 in 1524, but the war came to an abrupt end when Francis I was captured by the imperial army in Pavia in 1525. Doria prepared a plan to rescue him, but Francis ordered him to refrain.
Doria then clashed with Francis' regent, Anne de Montmorency, and abandoned French service, forming a naval mercenary fleet. In June 1526, at the head of thirteen ships, he crossed paths again with Hayreddin Barbarossa in the coast of Civitavecchia, defeating the Turkish and capturing fifteen of his sixteen vessels, with Barbarossa managing to escape in his flagship alone.
However, Doria ended up siding with France again when Pope Clement VII 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.
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 Antoine de La Rochefoucauld. Meanwhile, d'Avalos capitalized on the chance to try to convince Doria to switch sides, with Doria refusing to hand d'Avalos and Colonna to Francis as the king asked. Charles V and Doria exchanged letters, and although Francis found out about it and attempted to compensate the Genoese, the latter deserted the French for the emperor on June 1528.
In the service of Spain Without Doria's fleet, the League collapsed. The Genoese lifted the siege of Naples, chasing La Rochefoucauld to Provence and capturing four of his ships. In September, Doria and his forces drove the French out of Genoa and were triumphantly received by the city. 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.
Ruling the Genoese republic
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, 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.
He refused offers to take the lordship of Genoa and even the dogeship, but accepted the position of perpetual censor and the title of Father of the Fatherland (Liberator et Pater Patriae). He was still the de facto ruler of Genoa due to his economic and military power, and exercised undisputed influence in the councils of the republic until his death.
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 and many privileges. 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.Granata, Mario (1955). L' ammiraglio della superba (Andrea Doria). Torino: Editrice S.A.I.E.
To protect the restored republic from future foreign attacks, 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.
War against the Ottoman Empire Actions against the Ottomans and Barbary pirates occupied again much of Doria's time. In 1529, Spanish captain Rodrigo de Portundo was defeated by Aydın Reis, lieutenant of Hayreddin Barbarossa. Finding out Barbarossa had Cádiz on his sights, Doria launched an attack on Cherchell, where Barbarossa was planning to supply his fleet. The raid went awry by the inexperience of Doria's freshly recruited troops, many of them French,VI. Relations with France to 1536" In Suleiman the Magnificent, 1520-1566, 126-144. Cambridge, MA and London, England: Harvard University Press, 2013 who disbanded to sack the place and were abandoned to their luck, possibly by Barbarossa being near, but the operation succeeded in capturing a large part of the corsair's fleet in port and thwarting the campaign against Cádiz.
In summer 1532, in response to the Turkish 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 headed to Morea, capturing Coron by way of a novel system of cannons and ladders in his masts to assault the coastal bulwark. Doria followed by taking and sacking Patras, destroying fortresses around the Gulf of Corinth. Doria returned to Genoa with booty of 60,000 ducats, having helped force the Ottomans to abort a possible conquest of Hungary.
The Ottomans attempted to recover Coron the following year with a 110-ship armada captained by Lütfi Pasha. Doria gathered 27 galleys and 30 ships in Messina and lifted the siege. Doria forced Lufti to withdraw despite having a much smaller fleet, outmaneuvering the Turks with his galleys despite the absence of wind having becalmed his other ships, and losing only three galleys in the battle. The relief of Coron would be called by Edmond Jurien de La Gravière one of the most skillful naval operations of the 16th century.
Barbarossa, now turned into grand admiral of the Ottoman Empire, launched his own offensive from Constantinople with 80 galleys and French support, sacking around Naples and Sicily. In 1535, Charles V called for the conquest of Tunis, which Barbarossa had just conquered and made his base. The fleet, with Doria sharing main command with Bazán the Elder, succeeded in taking Tunis and capturing Barbarossa's entire fleet, although the corsair managed to escape. Doria followed Barbarossa to Bona, which the Genoese stormed, but Barbarossa had fled and taken refuge in Algiers. Charles intended to continue the campaign taking Algiers next, but the approaching autumn weather prevented it.
Italian War of 1536–1538 After the death of Francesco I Sforza 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. Doria and Bazán the Elder captured cities along the French Riviera, although stopping in Marseille. Shortly after, Barbarossa attacked and sacked the Balearic Islands with 27 galleasses he gathered in Algiers, leading Doria to give him chase unsuccessfully with 30 galleys, with orders of Charles V to bring the Turkish privateer dead or alive. In a shocking move, Francis allied with the Ottomans in 1536, installing Barbarossa with a Franco-Turkish fleet in Marseille, although the defenses built by Doria dissuaded them from trying to take Genoa.