The Great Siege of Malta Read online

  11. Ascham, English Works, 11.

  12. Suleiman built a mosque for Cihangir that could be seen from the palace. Caroline Finkel, Osman’s Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire (New York: Basic Books, 2005), 140.

  13. Busbecq, Legationis Turcicae, 97; Forster, Turkish Letters, 80.

  14. AOM, 91 f78, in Carmella Testa, Romegas (Malta: Midsea, 2002), 67. For loss of material, see ibid., 54.

  15. Brantôme, Œuvres complètes, vol. 4, 129.

  16. Blaise de Montluc, Commentaires de messire Blaise de Montluc (Paris: Drouart, 1595), 543.

  17. Bosio, Dell’Istoria, 448.

  18. Cirni, Svccessi dell’armata della Maestà Catolica (Florence: Lorenzo Torrenti, 1560), 187.

  19. Bosio, Dell’Istoria, 451.

  20. Francesco Balbi da Correggio, La Verdadera Relación de todo lo que el año de MDLXV ha succedido en la isla de Malta (Barcelona: Pedro Reigner, 1568), 18v.; Balbi di Correggio, The Siege of Malta, 1565, trans. Ernle Bradford (London: Folio Society, 1965), 29.

  21. Bosio, Dell’Istoria, 471.

  22. Ibid., 473.

  23. Bosio, Dell’Istoria, 471. Balbi (Verdadera, 19r.; Bradford, Siege of Malta, 29, says the sultana was protected by twenty galleys: “asegurada de veynte galeras”; Bosio (473–74), by twenty cannon: “venti Pezzi rinforzati di bronzo.” Bosio seems the more plausible. For a good account of galley tactics at this time, see Thomas Scheban, “A State with an Army—An Army with a State?” in The 1565 Ottoman Malta Campaign Register (Malta: Publishers Enterprise Group, 1998), 13–81.

  24. “Intelligence from Abroad,” Venice, July 29, 1564, in CSPFS, Elizabeth, vol. 7: 1564–1565, 183.

  25. Cirni, Successi, 39r.

  26. H. P. Scicluna, “L’Assedio di Malta: Informatione di Malta del ‘Rangone,’” Archivum Melitense 8, no. 1 (April 1929): 35. Rangone, a veteran soldier and part of the Great Relief of Malta, was also something of a crank. His report, while not inaccurate, was bilious as regards Valette and Don Garcia de Toledo. See Giovanni Bonello, “Pallavicino Ragone: Intemperate Critic of La Valette,” in Histories of Malta, vol. 9, Confessions and Transgressions (Malta: Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti, 2000), 58–66.

  27. Charrière, Négociations, vol. 2, 729. See also Uberto Foglietto, Istoria di Mons: Vberto Foglietta (Genoa: G. Pavoni, 1598), 527.

  28. Viperano, De Bello Melitensi Historia (Perugia: Andrea Bresciano, 1567), 4.

  29. Arnold Cassola, The Great Siege of Malta (1565) and the Istanbul State Archives (Malta: Said International, 1995), 19.

  30. Valette to George Hohenheim, October 9, 1565, Malta, in Porter, Knights of Malta, 720.

  31. For Ottoman strategic ambitions in the western Mediterranean, see Andrew C. Hess, “The Battle of Lepanto and Its Place in Mediterranean History,” Past and Present 52 (1972): 543–73.

  32. Balbi, Verdadera, 22r.; Bradford, Siege of Malta, 32. Anton Francesco Cirni, Commentarii (40r.) claims that Mehmed II’s tomb had inscribed in Arabic and Latin, Mens erat bellare Rhodum, et superare superbam Italiam: “His intention was to go to war against Rhodes and overcome proud Italy.”

  33. For Ottoman ambitions in the western Mediterranean, see Andrew Hess, “The Battle of Lepanto and Its Place in Mediterranean History,” Past and Present 52 (1972), 543–73 passim.

  34. Colección de documentos inéditos para la historia de España (henceforth, CODOIN), vol. 29, 54.

  35. Bosio, Dell’Istoria, vol. 3, 491.

  36. Ibid., 490.

  37. Ibid., 488.

  38. Von Hammer, 103. He should not be confused, though he often is, with Lala Kara Mustafa Pasha, 1510–1580, beylerbey of Damascus, commander of land forces on Cyprus (1570), and briefly, grand vizier. The exalted ancestry is likely bogus.

  39. Richard Blackburn, Journey to the Sublime Porte—The Arabic Memoir of a Sharifian Agent’s Diplomatic Mission to the Ottoman Imperial Court in the Era of Suleyman the Magnificent (Beirut: Orient-Institut, 2005), 171.

  40. Blackburn, Journey, 172.

  41. Bosio, Dell’Istoria, vol. 3, 501. Petremol cites an anecdote on his ill use of a French sailor (Charrière, Négociations, vol. 2, 782).

  42. Rossi, “L’Assedio di Malta,” 148.

  43. CODOIN, vol. 29, 345.

  44. Rossi, “L’Assedio di Malta,” 145.

  45. Braudel, Mediterranean, 945.

  46. Busbecq, Legationis Turcicae, 229; Forster, Turkish Letters, 175.

  47. Rossi, “L’Assedio di Malta,” 145.

  48. Evliyá Efendí, Narrative of Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa, vol. 1, pt. 2 (London: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland, 1846), 56.

  49. Petremol to Catherine de’ Medici, January 20, 1565, in Charrière, Négociations, vol. 2, 774. Cf. p. 772 for his information on Turgut’s proposed contributions.

  50. Setton, Papacy and the Levant, vol. 4, 845.

  51. William Fayre to Cecil, May 12, 1565, Madrid, in CSPFS, Elizabeth, vol. 7: 1564–1565, 365.

  52. Cirni, Commentarii, 38; Bosio, Dell’Istoria, vol. 3, 488. Cf. CODOIN, vol. 29, 38.

  53. Balbi, Verdadera, 18r. Bradford, Siege of Malta, 28.

  54. He may have been referring to the intelligence reports to be found in CODOIN, vol. 29, 5ff., which give some remarkably detailed and prescient takes on things to come.

  55. Arnold Cassola, The 1565 Ottoman Malta Campaign Register, with Idris Bostan and Thomas Scheben (Malta: Publishers Enterprises Group, 1998), 52.

  56. Cassola, Great Siege of Malta, 15–17. Hess, The Forgotten Frontier, 84; C.H. Imber, “The Navy of Suleiman the Magnificent,” Archivum Ottomanicum 6 (1980), 259. Ottoman records also contain a letter from Suleiman to Turgut confirming the target. Regretfully, the document is undated. “I have appointed Mustapha Pasha as Commander General of the Ottoman Army that is to conquer the island of Malta. I have also appointed Piale Pasha, the beylerbey of the Archipelago, commander of the Imperial Navy and asked him to join in the Siege of Malta. I am also relying on you because of your military experience. You should help Mustapha Pasha at sea and you should protect our navy against the enemy’s navy, which could set out from other countries to help Malta.” Cassola, Great Siege of Malta, 17.

  57. Emrah Safa Gürkan, “Espionage in the 16th Century Mediterranean: Secret Diplomacy, Mediterranean Go-Betweens, and the Ottoman Habsburg Rivalry” (PhD diss, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, 2012), 60. (Cf., however, Emilio Sola, Uchalí, el Calabrés Tiñoso, o el mito del corsario muladí en la frontera (Barcelona: Edicions Bellaterra, 2010), 111, which suggests that Hassan had bribed court officials to get the Ottomans to attack Malta.)

  58. Cassola, Great Siege of Malta, 23.

  59. Rafael Vargas-Hidalgo, Guerra y diplomacia en el Mediterráneo: Correspondencie inédita de Felippe II con Andrea Doria y Juan Andrea Doria (Madrid: Ediciones Polifemo, 2002), 444.

  60. Rossi, “L’Assedio di Malta,” 147.

  7. DARK CLOUDS IN THE EAST, 1565

  Epigraph: Rossi, “L’Assedio di Malta,” 146.

  1. Bosio, Dell’Istoria, vol. 3, 494.

  2. CN, vol. 12, doc. 78; Cesareo Fernandez Duro, Armada Espanola desde la union de los reinos de Castilla y de Aragon, vol. 2 (Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, 1896), 62.

  3. For the defenders’ point of view, see Blaise de Montluc, Commentaires (1521–1576) (Paris: Gallimard, 1964). Montluc later fought alongside Romegas against the Huguenots, notably at Mont-de-Marsan.

  4. Draft in Challoner’s holograph, July 29, 1564, Madrid, in CSPFS, Elizabeth, vol. 7: 1564–1565, 183.

  5. Report of Captain Francisco De Herazo, n.p., “Elizabeth: August 1564,” in CSPFS, Elizabeth, vol. 7: 1564–1565,194.

  6. Medici Archives, Florence, doc. MdP 219, doc. ID 16241, fol. 133, 1563. In his portrait, Don Garcia looks quite fit. Chiappino (1519–1575), by contrast, was in middle age widely noted for his immense gut—so large, they say, that a kind of harness had to be fitted about his neck to hold it in place.

  7. “Spanish command relationsh
ips were characteristically decentralized with the Captain General of the Sea commanding forces afloat and the Viceroy of Sicily controlling the Captain General’s main source of manpower and supplies.” John F. Guilmartin, “The Siege of Malta 1565,” in Amphibious Warfare, 1000–1700, ed. D. J. B. Trim (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 165. De Toledo successfully pointed to Ottoman success using such a streamlined method. His powers, however, were not unlimited, and he had to get Philip to order provisions from the viceroy of Naples (CODOIN, vol. 29, 22). Bosio states that Valette himself pushed for Don Garcia’s appointment. If true, that suggests a more respectful and trusting relationship between viceroy and grand master than some historians have described, at least initially. Bosio, Dell’Istoria, 485.

  8. CODOIN, vol. 27, 452, in Duro, Armada Espanola, vol. 3, 65–66, in Braudel, Mediterranean, 1013 n.: “Your majesty must know that it is indispensable that I have a firm hand with the fleet, in view of its present condition, if I am to do my job properly and safeguard his finances.”

  9. See Guilmartin, Gunpowder and Galleys, 120ff, for a discussion of Don Garcia’s report to Philip in fall of 1564. The report itself is to be found in Colección Navarrete, vol. 12m, dto 79, fol. 195ff.

  10. Don Garcia to Philip, January 18, 1565, in CODOIN, vol. 29, 23.

  11. Ibid., 30.

  12. Setton, Papacy and the Levant, vol. 3, 852. Granvelle, however, writes on January 15, that “Don Garcia de Toledo a esté à Rome fort bien receu du pape; Dieu doint que ce soit le chemin pour rabiller ce du resentement causé sur la prétension de la précédence.” Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, Papiers d’état du Cardinal de Granvelle, vol. 8 (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1850), 606.

  13. There were a few surprise holdouts. The viceroy of Naples declined to help, citing a lack of orders to do so, necessitating yet another begging letter back to Madrid. CODOIN, vol. 29, 22.

  14. Petremol to Catherine de’ Medici, April 7, 1565, Constantinople, in Charrière, Négociations, vol. 2, 782: One hundred and fifty oared vessels, eight gallaces, eight navires, and several other small vessels to carry munitions.

  15. Bosio, Dell’Istoria, vol. 3, xxiv, 510; Charrière, Négotiations, vol. 2, 789–90; Setton, Papacy and the Levant, 852; Cirni, Commentarii, 42v.; Charrière, Négotiations, vol. 2, 782, 783.

  16. Hammer, 104. Peçevi has a different view. Rossi, “L’Assedio di Malta,” 150.

  17. Bosio, Dell’Istoria, 501. Cf. Cirni, Commentarii, 41v., who says that Piali must be obedient (ubidiente) to Mustapha.

  18. Charrière, Négotiations, vol. 2, 782; cf. CODOIN, vol. 29, 349.

  19. Viperano, De Bello Melitensi Historia, 190.

  20. Charrière, Négotiations, vol. 2, 782; cf. CODOIN, vol. 29, 349.

  21. Rossi, “L’Assedio di Malta,” 147.

  22. Balbi, Verdadera, 23v.; Bradford, Siege of Malta, 34; Cirni, Commentarii, 41r.

  23. Battista Ferraro, ASG, Constantinopoli Mazzo I.n.g. 2169, Chius Vincta, or, The Occupation of Chios by the Turks, 1566 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1941), xciii.

  24. Charrière, Négotiations, vol. 2, 772–73, 782, 783–84; cf. CODOIN, vol. 29, 38–57. Petremol suggests that the commanders could go elsewhere should Malta or Goletta prove uninteresting. Charrière, Négotiations, vol. 2, 785. He did, however, warn that pirates could still be a French concern that season. Ibid., 786.

  25. Balbi, Verdadera, 24v.; Bradford, Siege of Malta, 36.

  26. Balbi, Verdadera, 24v.; Bradford, Siege of Malta, 36.

  27. Cirni, Commentarii, 45r., says that 150 of the 600 soldiers managed to reach the shore.

  28. Balbi, Verdadera, 26r.; Bradford, Siege of Malta, 38.

  29. AOM 430 f., 266v., in Spiteri, The Great Siege, 578. After the siege was over, he was ruthless in trying knights (almost all of them French) who had not heeded the call. Giovanni Bonello, “Great Siege, Small Morsels,” in Histories of Malta, vol. 9, Confessions and Transgressions (Malta: Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti, 2008), 22–23.

  30. Bosio, Dell’Istoria, 499.

  31. Balbi, Verdadera, 27v.; Bradford, Siege of Malta, 41. Balbi himself offered to leave. Balbi, Verdadera, 38.

  32. Valette to Philip, in CODOIN, vol. 29, 348. Cf. Bosio, Dell’Istoria, vol. 3, 499.

  33. Toledo to Philip, April 11, 1565, in CODOIN, vol. 29, 89. Toledo reiterates this in a May 16, 1565, letter to Philip, referring to two companies of Spaniards. CODOIN, vol. 29, 136.

  34. Ibid., 88.

  35. Roger Vella Bonavita, “Francesco Laparelli Military Architect at Malta,” in Francesco Laparelli architetto cortonese a Malta, ed. E. Mirri (Cortona, IT: Tiphys, 2009), 47.

  36. Bosio, Dell’Istoria, 499. Exceptions were not unknown: Sir Oliver Starkey may not have been technically qualified for his position. See Giovanni Bonello, “Sir Oliver Starkey: Paragon and Victim,” in Histories of Malta, vol. 2, Versions and Diversions (Malta: Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti, 2002), 42–54. Nor was Valette necessarily in a position to frown on a bastard child; there is evidence that he had a daughter not much younger than Faderigo (see Giovanni Bonello, “Grand Masters in the Cinquecento: Their Persona and Death,” Malta Medical Journal 15, no. 2 [November 2003]).

  37. Queen Mary had briefly returned them, and Elizabeth was as civil to the Order as she was to anyone who did not directly threaten her—but she was in no position to follow her half-sister’s lead. She needed the money. The Order owned the London district of St. John’s Wood. As to Starkey, he appears to have had little enthusiasm for the coming siege: “Wrote touching Oliver Starky, Knight of Rhodes, who is in Malta. Men give him a good report both for wisdom and valiantness. But he is poor, and not able without more help than he has of the order there to maintain his estate. He is desirous to return home. If he does come he will conform to their religion.” Smith to Cecil, April 10, 1565, Bordeaux, in “Elizabeth: April 1565, 1–15,” CSPFS, Elizabeth, vol. 7: 1564–1565, 330.

  38. H. A. R. Balbi, “Some Unpublished Records on the Siege of Malta, 1565,” Institute of Historical Research, Malta, no. 6 (1937): 5–36. Bulletin.

  39. CODOIN, vol. 29, 5–10.

  40. Roger Vella Bonavita, “The Opinion of Gian Giacomo Leonardi,” Fort, Fortress Study Group, no. 34 (2006).

  41. Bosio, Dell’Istoria, vol. 3, 518.

  42. Ibid., 499. See Hughes, “How Fort St. Elmo Survived for So Long,” Treasures of Malta 8 (2002): 115.

  43. Bosio, Dell’Istoria, vol. 3, 500; cf. CODOIN, vol. 29, 86, 9.

  44. CODOIN, vol. 29, 89.

  8. FIRST BLOOD

  Epigraphs: Charrière, Négociations, 784; 1565 Ottoman Malta Campaign Register, 135.

  1. CODOIN, vol. 29,113ff.

  2. Testa, Romegas, 79.

  3. Viperano, De Bello, 7.

  4. Ettore Rossi, Storia della marina dell’Ordine di San Giovanni (Rome: Seai, 1926), 29.

  5. CODOIN, vol. 39, 136.

  6. Balbi, Verdadera, 32v.; Bradford, Siege of Malta, 45; Bosio, Dell’Istoria, vol. 3, 513. Viperano (7) puts it at 450 men total.

  7. Possibly Piali wanted to ensure that no enemy fleets were hidden on the far side of the island. He knew from Djerba what could happen to a disordered fleet caught in a tight space.

  8. One hundred and thirty galleys, thirty galleots, nine barges, ten large ships, and two hundred smaller transport vessels. Spiteri, The Great Siege, 24. See also Braudel, Mediterranean, 1015, for details.

  9. Cirni, Commentarii, 50v.

  10. Bosio, Dell’Istoria, vol. 3, 520.

  11. Cassola, Great Siege of Malta, 64.

  12. Balbi, Verdadera, 32r.; Bradford, Siege of Malta, 47. Bosio says it was a Portuguese who came to aid La Rivière and was captured with him. Bosio, Dell’Istoria, vol. 3, 520.

  13. Cirni (Commentarii, 49v.) gives a simpler story, essentially that La Rivière was wounded and captured in a skirmish, and an unidentified knight killed.

  14. Cassola, 1565 Ottoman Malta Campaign Register, 217.

  15. Balbi, Verdadera, 33r.; Bradford, Siege of Malta, 47.
/>
  16. Balbi, Verdadera, 25v.; Bradford, Siege of Malta, 37. Bosio puts this letter, and the subsequent discord, as happening earlier at sea. Bosio, Dell’Istoria, vol. 3, 512.

  17. Viperano, De Bello, 7; Balbi, Verdadera, 33v.; Bradford, Siege of Malta, 47; Bosio, Dell’Istoria, vol. 3, 521; Cirni, Commentarii, 50r.

  18. Cirni, Commentarii, 50r.

  19. For an exhaustive discussion, see Spiteri, Great Siege, 70–107.

  20. Determining the exact breakdown is somewhat problematic given the source material from the time and the subsequent destruction and reworking of the defense works themselves. See Spiteri, Great Siege, 294, for a full discussion.

  21. Balbi, Verdadera, 33r.; Bradford, Siege of Malta, 47–48. Cirni, Commentarii, 51v., says only that La Rivière did not know which defense was best (“quel banda era meglio”).

  9. SIZING UP THE ENEMY

  Epigraph: Celio Secondo Curione, Caelius Secundus Curio: His Historie of the Warr of Malta, trans. Thomas Mainwaring, ed. Helen Vella-Bonavita (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2007), 58.

  1. Bosio, Dell’Istoria, 522.

  2. Ibid., 521.

  3. Bregante, ASG, busta I.2169. Gregorio Bregante was a Genoese spy based in Constantinople; he is likely the agent mentioned in Philip Argenti’s “Chius Vincta,” as going to Malta with the Ottoman expedition (xciii, xciv).

  4. Colección de libros españoles raros o curiosos, Tomo Decimoquinto: Guerras de los Españoles en Africa 1542, 1543, y 1632 (Madrid: Miguel Ginesta, 1881), 98.

  5. Bosio, Dell’Istoria, vol. 3, 514. Viperano tosses out the figure of eight hundred (Viperano, De Bello, 8).

  6. Codex Laparelli, f. 33v., in Roger Vella Bonavita, “Parere di Gian Giacomo Leonardi, Conte di Montelabbate, sulla Fortezza Gerosolimitana di Malta, 31 Ottobre 1557,” Melita Historica: Journal of the Malta Historical Society 14 (2004). Don Garcia does, however, express his dismay that the Ottomans might take advantage of the various private cisterns throughout the island, which would make travel to Gozo unnecessary. De Toledo to Philip, May 21, 1565, in CODOIN, vol. 29, 157.