A galleass (Italian galeazza, Spanish galeaza) was a warship of the Renaissance that combined the sails and armament of a galleon or carrack with the propulsion and maneuverability of the oared galley. While never quite matching up to the full expectations for its design, the galleass was widely employed by the navies of the Republic of Venice and the Spanish Empire during the 16th and 17th centuries.
Distinct types of galleasses were developed concurrently under vastly different needs. Mediterranean galleasses were invented by Venice during the Ottoman–Venetian wars with the aim to overpower galley fleets, a model also adopted by Spain and other nations after their notable role in the Battle of Lepanto. In comparison, Atlantic galleasses were designed by Spain to outmaneuver sailing ships and protect their treasure fleets, eventually evolving into oarless galleons and frigates.
Characteristics The term "galleass" was also applied to any particularly large and heavy galley, but eventually came to mean a cross between a rowing and a sailing ship. Mediterranean galleasses were higher, larger and wider than regular galleys. They also differed in not having as high a length to beam ratio as the galleys, being limited to 1:5 compared to their 1:7. They had up to 32 oars, each worked by up to five men. They usually had three masts, and unlike galleys, proper forecastles and an aftcastles. Although fundamentally slower than regular galleys, much effort was made in Venice to make galleasses as fast as possible to compete with them. The gun deck usually ran over the rowers' heads, but there are also pictures showing the opposite arrangement.
Galleasses usually carried more sails than galleys and had far more firepower. Compared to galleys, which only fielded a handful of guns on their prows and none on their broadsides, a galleass' artillery could carry 30-50 pieces of different sizes. Galleasses were also way more stable in rough seas due to their larger dimensions and higher freeboard. However, their reduced speed and maneuverability meant they needed to be supported by lighter galleys, which would tow them to assist their movement.
Atlantic galleasses (galeaza atlántica or cantábrica) were developed in parallel by Spain. They were crosses between galleys and galleons meant to be used in Atlantic Ocean, where they could hunt down sailing ships. Unlike Mediterranean models, Atlantic galleasses were designed primarily to move by sail, and would only deploy their rows to strategically turn or sprint. This allowed them a better maneuverability than purely sailing ships, while the increased size also allowed for superior firepower compared to Mediterranean galleasses. Spanish Atlantic galleasses could carry up to 100 guns of several sizes.Cerezo Martín, R. (1983). "La táctica naval en el siglo XVI". Revista de Historia Naval, vol. 2, Instituto de historia y cultura naval de la Armada Española A similar but smaller model was the galizabra, which combined traits of both a galley and a zabra.E. G. Torralba Pérez, Las fragatas de vela de la armada espanola 1600-1850 (su evolucion técnica).
The English and French also adopted smaller galleasses for their usage in the Atlantic. English galleasses were fitted with six to nine guns, generally small and interspersed between the row ports in the lower deck. They were used to escort the wings of a bigger fleet, and were meant to be supported themselves by pinnaces and even smaller galleasses called rowbarges.
Ottoman galleasses, created for the Mediterranean, were called mahon or mahona (from Arabic mahun, meaning boat).Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 1890, p.673 They resembled their Venetian counterparts, although smaller and with lighter armament, carrying usually 20 guns of different sizes, and served eminently as flagships and artillery ships. Mahons likely appeared in the 17th century, although the term was previously in use for oared transports, causing confusion in some sources.
History Some authors identify as galleasses the great galleys used by Venice during the Second Ottoman–Venetian War, forming part of their fleet in the Battle of Zonchio in 1499. These ships were described to be so advanced that the Ottomans could not replicate them yet, not even after capturing two in the Battle of Modon and towing one to Constantinople. The Ottomans also fielded two carracks with rows during the battle. Otherwise, the Mediterranean galleass is considered to have been probably conceived during the naval reforms of Cristoforo Canal, after the end of the Third Ottoman-Venetian War in 1540.Alvise Zorzi, La Repubblica del Leone: Storia di Venezia, 1979, Rusconi, p.317
Development
In 1526, engineer Vettor Fausto built and tested a large quinquereme, inspired by Hellenistic-era warships, to convince the Venetian Senate that heavy galleys could trump much larger fleets, especially in light of Venice's unstable position compared to the Spanish and Ottoman empires. His model influenced future galleasses, which were known as galeazze alla faustina ("Fausto-style galleasses").Tzavaras, A. (2014). "The galleasses at Lepanto as a reflection of the sixteenth-century Venetian strategic outlook". Vol. 2: NCSU Graduate Journal of History Subsequent Venetian galleasses were based on existent models of great galleys (galea grossa) used to carry heavy loads for trade (da mercato).García-Torralba Pérez, E. (2021). "Los ecos de Lepanto: las galeazas y galeras españolas en el Atlántico". Revista de Historia Naval, nº 153, pp. 9-38 ISSN: 0212-467X Great galleys had been traditionally used by Venice since the 13th century to carry the most precious goods and defend them from attacks, but by the 16th century, they had been gradually abandoned due to their decreasing profitability.
In 1540, Álvaro de Bazán the Elder built a private fleet in Biscay, including Atlantic galleasses like the 800-ton Santa María and the 1200-ton Santa María Magdalena, carrying 100 guns each. They were employed with great success in counter-privateering.Trueba, Eduardo (1996). "Galeazas cantábricas de don Álvaro de Bazán: arqueos, mediciones e historial marítimo". Revista de Historia Naval, ISSN 0212-467X, ISSN-e 2530-0873, Año nº 14, Nº 54, págs. 69-96 Bazán also proposed to replace the sailing ships in the Spanish treasure fleets with galleasses of 200-400 tons, which would again employ sails normally and switch to rows when necessary. The project was rejected by a mix of political and logistic problems, so he repurposed the ships to escort the existent fleets, similarly gaining renown for their performance and reliability.
The English navy adopted galleasses around the same period. In addition to three prototypes built earlier, in 1543 they captured Pierre de Bidoux, Seiur de l'Antigue, nephew to French admiral Prégent de Bidoux, who offered his services as a shipbuilder to King Henry VIII against his former employers. He built nine galleasses for their use in the Atlantic between 1544 and 1546, including the six-gun Bull, the eight-gun Tiger and the nine-gun Antelope and Hart, depicted in the Anthony Roll. At least two others were developed by Scotland, yet captured by the English in 1544. English galleasses and rowbarges proved effective against French galleys during the Italian War of 1542–1546.
The first Venetian galleasses seem to have been built around 1550 over existent great galleys, probably as a response to the lack of mobility displayed by purely sailing warships in the Battle of Preveza. They were built secretly in the Arsenal, but were never used for war due to the great fire at the Arsenal in 1569, which destroyed them before they could be launched.Pasquale Ventrice, "L'Arsenale di Venezia e i cantieri navali della marina", in Il contributo italiano alla storia del Pensiero: Tecnica, Rome, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, 2013. According to Genoese admiral Andrea Doria, Venice had refrained from fielding these galleasses after finding them too impractical.Mira Caballos, E. (2002). "Controversias sobre el sistema naval con América a mediados del siglo XVI: los proyectos de Álvaro de Bazán". Iberoamericana. América Latina, España, Portugal: Ensayos sobre letras, historia y sociedad, ISSN-e 2255-520X, ISSN 1577-3388, Nº 7, 2002, pp.. 39-58
Popularization Atlantic galleasses were also used in conjunction with carracks by Álvaro de Bazán the Younger to fight off pirates and privateers in the Atlantic, since these usually employed carracks and other sailing ships themselves, which could be rendered easy prey for galleasses in conditions of little to no wind. One of his captures in 1557 was a French galleass, the 19-gun, 200-ton La Crézen de Burdeos. However, with the end of the Italian Wars in 1559, Bazán was eventually required to redirect his efforts to the Mediterranean, where Ottomans and Barbary corsairs mainly used quicker galleys and galiots, leading him to replace his fleet by a similar squad of galleys.
In 1561, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés designed and built 230-ton Atlantic galleasses inspired by Bazán the Elder, which received the name of galeones agalerados ("galleyed galleons"). He formed a fleet of twelve, nicknamed the "Twelve Apostles", to protect the Spanish treasure fleets from French and English pirates and privateers, for which they exceeded expectations. However, their rows were eventually discarded as impractical when it was found out the ships would take water through the row-ports while rowing into the wind. Their cargo hold was also improved with an additional bridge. As a result, their model evolved into the galeoncete, a fast, lighter galleon.
Venice built a fleet of galleases again in 1564 by the hand of shipbuilder Francesco Bressan, using the hull of great galleasses which were added forecastles and aftcastles with heavier artillery. Their works were accelerated in 1567 with the worsening risk of an open war against the Ottoman Empire. The Grand Duchy of Tuscany also built two galleasses in preparation, although they lacked quality and were not fielded. Also in 1564, French admiral Gaspard de Coligny included a 200-ton Atlantic galleass in his expedition to Florida, where they built Fort Caroline. The settlement was destroyed by Menéndez de Avilés after one year.
Holy League Twenty early mahons were among the Ottoman fleet of the Great Siege of Malta in 1565, probably referring to troop carriers at this stage. By 1571, at the start of the Ottoman conquest of Cyprus, Venice had twelve operational galleasses, which headed for Cyprus with the Venetian squad under the command of Girolamo Zane as part of the Christian relief fleet. Ottoman admiral Piali Pasha intended to fight them in Candia, but bad weather prevented it. Six of the galleasses were integrated in the fleet of the Holy League, under the command of Francesco Duodo. They would have their first battle in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, where the Holy League's fleet under John of Austria would face the Ottoman armada of Müezzinzade Ali Pasha.