The Place of Lepanto in Political Memory: Allusions to the Holy League and Lepanto in International Politics in the Late 16th and Early 17th Centuries
The Ottoman attempt to reactivate its Mediterranean policy in 1590–1591 and the papal efforts to establish a new Holy League starting in 1592 revived the international memory of the Battle of Lepanto at the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th century. Beginning in the 1590s, Spanis...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Istanbul University Press
2022-03-01
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| Series: | Tarih Dergisi |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://cdn.istanbul.edu.tr/file/JTA6CLJ8T5/D571E46F004146768AC06A551367D46B |
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| Summary: | The Ottoman attempt to reactivate its Mediterranean policy in 1590–1591 and the papal efforts to establish a new Holy League starting in 1592 revived the international memory of the Battle of Lepanto at the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th century. Beginning in the 1590s, Spanish, Italian, and Ottoman statesmen made references to the Battle of Lepanto in their correspondence and diplomatic negotiations. This article discusses how the historical memory of the War of Cyprus, the Holy League, the Battle of Lepanto, and the ensuing developments affected the perceptions of political, diplomatic, and military events in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. For this purpose, I examine the diplomatic and political practices of contemporaneous statesmen, such as Admiral Gian Andrea Doria of the Spanish navy, Venetian ambassador Paolo Paruta, Spanish ambassador Antonio Fernández de Córdoba y Cardona, and the influential Ottoman official Hoca Sadeddin Efendi. I demonstrate that these statesmen referred frequently to the developments of the Lepanto period and established historical similarities and historical comparisons with the events of 1570–1573 to explain the issues they dealt with in international politics during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. |
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| ISSN: | 2619-9505 |