Gian Andrea Daria, a Genoese admiral, went to Lepanto with special commendation from Spain's King Philip II. who urged Don Juan to take no action without consulting Doria.
Don Juan of Austria (above) was repeatedly accused of favoring one or another of the allies. He once wrote to the Doge: “My ill-wishers, weary of making me out to be so great a Venetian, now say I neglect Your Serenity."
For sheer combustibility, few alliances in history rival the Holy League of Venice, Spain and the papacy. The negotiations, held in late 1570 and early 1571, often seemed a litany of totally irreconcilable aims. Venice wanted to save Cyprus from the Turks, Spain wanted to fight the Turks only on the Barbary Coast, and Pope Pius V envisioned a crusade against the infidels wherever they were found.
Spain, mistrusting Venice, insisted on automatic excommunication of any state that withdrew from the league. The Pope rejected the proposal, but Spain had good reason to be suspicious: It later turned out that Venice had stalled the talks for months while secretly—and unsuccessfully—negotiating with the Turks.
After the treaty was signed, the fractious allied commanders (right) were held together by their leader, Don Juan of Austria, long enough to confront the Turks at the Battle of Lepanto in October 1571. But the flimsy pact collapsed within three years.
Agostino Barbarigo, the Venetian second-in-command, was quiet in council but utterly courageous in battle. When bis fellow commanders at Lepanto beard he was mortally wounded, they fought with redoubled fury to avenge him,
Spain’s Don Alvaro de Bazdn (below) was the Holy League’s most respected admiral Gian Andrea Daria, who at first disagreed with the Lepanto battle plan, assented only after Bazdn gave his approval.
Although Marc Antonio Colonna (above), Grand Constable of Spanish Naples, was a soldier and not a sailor, be was named second-incommand of the fleet by Pius V in order to win Spain to the alliance.
Sebastiano Venier, the impetuous Venetian commander, bated Genoese leader Gian Andrea Doria, On learning that Doria was to inspect the Venetian contingent, Venier threatened to kill any Genoese who dared approach bis ship.
Enemy could row between. It was vital that the Holy League fleet, with its huge weight of prow-mounted cannon, should maintain a solid line-abreast formation and meet the Muslims head on. The Muslim galleys, though less powerful, were quicker and more maneuverable than their Christian opponents; their chief hope of victory lay in precipitating a general melee and then attacking Christian galleys from the sides and rear, where they were only lightly gunned.
Following a plan devised at Messina, the Holy League fleet resolved itself into four great squadrons—right, left, center and reserve (maps, pages 147-149). Venetians, Spanish, Genoese and papal ships were mingled side by side in each squadron to prevent any panicking allied commander from withdrawing his entire contingent in midbattle. In the center squadron of 64 galleys sailed Don Juan himself in the Real, with Venier in the Venetian flagship on one side and the papal commander, Colonna, on the other. Also in this squadron was the small but redoubtable flotilla of the Knights of Saint John. The whole center group flew blue pennants from its mastheads.
The left wing, under the Venetian provveditore Agostino Barbarigo, comprised 53 galleys, 41 of them Venetian and all flying yellow banderoles at their foreyards. In this squadron went some of the republic’s proudest war galleys: the Fortune, the Sea Horse, the Christ Raised and the Great Christ Risen Again. It was no accident that Venetian ships predominated in this group, which was charged with protecting the inshore flank of the Christian fleet. Here the Muslim galleys stood their best chance of outflanking the Holy League fleet, since their shallow drafts allowed them to maneuver close to land. Of the Christian ships the Venetian galleys were the lightest and quickest; they alone could counter the threat.
The right wing, under the command of Doria, numbered 54 vessels, flying green pennants. But these galleys, occupying the southernmost station, had the farthest to go before they reached their positions and were still maneuvering even when the battle began. In the rear of the fleet, with a reserve of 38, showing white pennants astern, came the Spaniard Don Alvaro de Bazan, who was ordered to bolster any part of the line that wavered or was in serious danger.
As the Turkish sails grew distinct in the clear Greek light, the six Venetian galleasses, impregnably high and bristling with guns but too heavy to maneuver quickly, were towed by galleys toward a position 1,000 yards in front of the battle line, where—like floating bastions— they could break up the enemy advance with their artillery. The galleasses on the left wing were commanded by relatives of the dead and defiled commander Bragadin, who were hot for revenge. These, and the two galleasses in the center, reached their positions before the battle began, but the two on the right could not be towed into place in time.
Now the Turkish armada—divided into four squadrons like the Holy League fleet—was approaching up the gulf with a light wind behind. It advanced in a huge crescent formation, presenting a concave front to the Christians, one edge of its battle line running through the shallows of the northern coast, the other reaching out toward the Peloponnesian shore to the south. Don Juan, clothed in full armor, left the Real for a swift
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