Andrea Doria

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Andrea Doria, painting by Sebastiano del Piombo (ca.1526)
Signature Andrea Doria.PNG

Andrea Doria (born November 30, 1466 in Oneglia , † November 25, 1560 in Genoa ), German also Andreas Doria , was a Genoese admiral and prince of Melfi . Although he did not exercise the office of Doge , he became the real ruler of the Republic of Genoa .

Early years

Andrea Doria was the offspring of the old Genoese noble family Doria , which had produced excellent naval leaders for centuries. He grew up without a father and initially served as a condottiere to Pope Innocent VIII , then to other Italian princes ( Montefeltro , Senigallia ). In 1503 he fought for his hometown in Corsica against the French, whom he also forced to withdraw from Liguria . He then became an admiral and fought at the head of the Genoese fleet against the Ottomans and North African pirates .

Wars between France and the Holy Roman Empire

Genoa was claimed and repeatedly occupied by both France and the Holy Roman Empire (see Italian Wars ). When Emperor Charles V conquered the city in 1522, Doria allied with the French and entered the service of King Francis I. In 1524 Andrea Doria liberated Marseille, which was besieged by imperial troops . After the French king had subsequently shown himself to be ungrateful (poor treatment, insufficient compensation, delays in the promised return of the city of Savona ), he switched to the emperor's side in 1528.

Restoration of the Republic of Genoa

Doria ordered his nephew Filippino, who was besieging Naples with the French , to retreat. With the support of leading families, the French who remained in Genoa were expelled and the republic was restored under imperial protection. Andrea Doria reformed the constitution , overcame tensions between Ghibellines and Guelphs and laid the foundations for an aristocratic form of government. Until his death he had considerable influence on the "parliament" of Genoa. In addition to many privileges, the city gave him two palaces and gave him the title “Liberator et Pater patriae ” (“Liberator and Father of the Fatherland”).

Imperial admiral

" Andrea Doria as Neptune " by Agnolo Bronzino
Andreas Doria from the Schiller Gallery ;
Steel engraving by Jaquemot after Pecht , around 1859

Andrea Doria commanded several missions against the Ottomans as an imperial admiral. When the Ottomans under Sultan Süleyman I made a second attempt to conquer Vienna in 1532 after the first Turkish siege of Vienna in 1529, Doria suggested a diversionary maneuver on Greek soil to the emperor. The emperor accepted and commissioned Doria with this. On July 29th, Doria arrived with 25 galleys in Naples and on August 4th in Messina , where he combined his fleet and on August 18th he left with 48 galleys and 30 other large ships to the east. Doria is said to have heard of an insignificant Ottoman fleet near Kefalonia from the Republic of Venice ; at the same time Venice is said to have warned the Ottoman admiral against Doria's large fleet. When Doria reached Kefalonia, the Ottoman fleet had therefore already withdrawn to Constantinople . Doria devastated the beaches of Peloponnese and decided to attack Koroni .

When Doria arrived before Koroni, the local people welcomed him in secret and informed him about the internal state of the city. Andrea Doria had a large part of the Spanish and Italian crew put ashore to siege the city. The Italians were commanded by Girolamo (or Geronimo) Tuttavilla and the Spanish by Girolamo Mendoza. After three days of stubborn struggle, Doria took what was then the metropolis of Morea on September 21, 1532 . Now the townspeople identified themselves, took sides with him, as previously agreed, and proclaimed the sovereignty of Charles V. The Ottomans were forced to abandon the city and withdraw, troubled by the inability to vent their anger on the citizens. The next day, however, one of the Ottoman generals came back with 700 horses to help the Ottoman soldiers. The Spaniards and the people of Koroni presented themselves for battle, killed a large number of them, planted the heads of the slaughtered on their lances, while the survivors surrendered to Admiral Doria. In this victory the people of Koroni (called "Coronei" in Italian) accompanied the admiral and the Spaniards with endless applause.

When Doria left the city to conquer Patras , he entrusted the city government to Don Girolamo Mendoza. When the news of the conquest of Koroni and the massacre of an astonishingly high number of the Ottoman army reached Suleyman I , Suleyman swore bitter revenge to the "Coronei" who had joined the Spanish crown as the culprits of his defeat.

On November 8, 1532, Emperor Charles V had Admiral Doria recalled from the east to accompany him to Spain. The most important noble Albanian families embarked on Doria's ships and arrived with him on December 24th in Naples, where Doria received much praise. Charles V honored the Albanians from Koroni and Patras with several certificates and showered them with privileges (cf. Arbëresh ).

The Spanish flag was not to fly long on the fortress of Koroni, because in 1533 Süleyman sent a sea fleet under the commander-in-chief of the Ottoman Mediterranean navy Chizir , called Barbarossa by the Christian Europeans, in front of the city. Mendoza, who found himself surrounded, sent a message to the Viceroy of Naples , Pedro Álvarez de Toledo , asking for immediate help. The “Coronei” also added concern, expressing their dismay and the support they wanted. The viceroy sent both letters to the emperor who, from the representations of one and the other, "was sensitive and respectful of the nobles from Koroni who had campaigned for the good of the royal crown ", quickly a new sea fleet with 150 galleys under the direction of Andria Sent Doria to Koroni. Eight nautical miles from Koroni, on August 2, 1533, there was a brief battle with the Ottomans. Doria had the troops and supplies brought ashore and returned to Italy and disbanded the army.

In 1535 Doria conquered Tunis , where he freed 20,000 Christians held as slaves by the Ottomans during the Tunis campaign . In 1538 a European fleet of 302 ships under the leadership of Andrea Doria was defeated in the naval battle of Preveza by a Turkish fleet of 122 ships under the leadership of Chair ad-Din Barbarossa and Turgut Reis ("Dragut"). Doria is said to have deliberately allowed this defeat because he wanted to spare his own ships and damage the Venetian rivals of his hometown. In 1541 he had to accompany Emperor Charles V on his campaign in Algeria , which, as Doria predicted, failed. The armed forces deployed there could only escape total annihilation thanks to Doria's intervention. In the following years he served the emperor actively and successfully in Europe and the Orient , although he was already over seventy years old.

Andrea Doria used slaves and convicts as rowers on his warships. Among them were members of the Anabaptist community of the Hutterites who had been arrested in Steinebrunn at the beginning of December 1539 on the orders of Ferdinand I. After embarrassing interrogations , 90 of them were chained to each other in twos and driven to Trieste , the home port of the Doria fleet, in the middle of winter , in order to use them "against the Turks and other enemies for robbery and war." The history book of the Hutterite Brothers reports detailed their story and tells of their non-violent resistance to military service in the Doria Armada, which they refused for reasons of conscience.

Late years

After the Peace of Crépy (1544) between Francis I and Charles V, Doria planned to retreat from active political and military life. But his personal wealth and influence earned him envy, resentment and even open hostility. The arrogance of his nephew and heir Giannettino Doria also contributed to this. In 1547, Genoese noble families, including the Fieschi , tried in a plot to break the power of the Doria in the city. His nephew Giannettino was murdered in the process. Andrea Doria vigorously thwarted the plans of his opponents on this and other occasions. Friedrich Schiller processed these events in his tragedy " The Fiesco Conspiracy in Genoa ". Emperor Karl's attempts to station Spanish troops in the city and thus to bring Genoa under his control failed due to Doria's opposition.

In 1550, at the age of 84, Doria was still leading the fleet against North African pirates. Another outbreak of war between the emperor and France led Andrea Doria to fight for the independence of his republic. From 1553 to 1555 he led the Genoese troops on Corsica in the eventful battles against the French.

In 1555, almost 90 years old, he returned to Genoa as an old and frail man and resigned from all public offices. He died there in 1560, a few days before his 94th birthday.

reception

Around 400 years later, the largest, fastest and most elegant ship of the Italian (passenger ship) fleet was named after him. This sank on July 25, 1956 after a collision with the Swedish passenger ship Stockholm .

The Genoese football club SG Andrea Doria also bore his name.

The plant genus Doria Fabr. From the sunflower family (Asteraceae) is named after him.

literature

Web links

Commons : Andrea Doria  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gregorio Rosso: Historia delle cose di Napoli, sotto l'imperio di Carlo Quinto . Domenico Montanaro, Naples 1635, p. 83 (Italian, limited preview in Google Book search).
  2. ^ Gregorio Rosso, p. 85
  3. ^ A b Gregorio Rosso, p. 86
  4. ↑ a b Luigi Jaccarini: Vite e ritratti degli uomini celebri di tutti i tempi e di tutte le nazioni . tape 1 . Gaetano Nobile, Toledo 1840, p. 143 (Italian, limited preview in Google Book search).
  5. ^ A b Eberhard Werner Happel: Highly deserved honorary Seule Christian bravery . Thomas von Wierung, Hamburg 1688, p. 169 ( limited preview in Google Book search). , accessed December 7, 2016
  6. ^ Gregorio Rosso, p. 87
  7. ↑ Pietro Pompilio Rodotà: Dell'Origine, Progresso e Stato presente del Rito Greco in Italia, osservato dai greci, monaci basiliani e albanesi, Libro III, Capo. III . Biblioteca Vaticana, Rome 1763, p. 54 (Italian, limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed December 9, 2016]).
  8. ↑ a b c Pietro Pompilio Rodotà, p. 55
  9. ^ Gregorio Rosso, p. 88
  10. ↑ a b Gregorio Rosso, p. 89
  11. ↑ Pietro Pompilio Rodotà, p. 56
  12. ↑ a b Corone. Retrieved December 9, 2016 (Italian).
  13. ↑ Clarence Baumann: Nonviolence in Anabaptism. An investigation into the theological ethics of Upper German Anabaptism during the Reformation , Leiden (Netherlands) 1968, pp. 69f
  14. ↑ Compare Rudolf Wolkan (ed.): History book of the Hutterite Brothers , Macmillan Colony Cayley (Alberta / Canada) 1982 (revised new edition), pp. 161–163
  15. ^ Text from "The Fiesco Conspiracy" on Project Gutenberg.org
  16. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names - Extended Edition. Part I and II. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin , Freie Universität Berlin , Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-946292-26-5 doi: 10.3372 / epolist2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Doria, Andrea
ALTERNATIVE NAMES d'Oria, Andrea
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Genoese condottiere, admiral and prince of Melfi
DATE OF BIRTH November 30, 1466
PLACE OF BIRTH Imperia (Liguria)
DATE OF DEATH November 25, 1560
Place of death Genoa