Battle of Girolata

The Battle of Girolata was a naval action fought on 15 June 1540 in the Gulf of Girolata, on the west coast of the island of Corsica, amidst a war between Charles V (Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain) and the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. An Ottoman squadron of 11 galleys, anchored at Girolata, under the command of the Ottoman admiral Dragut, was surprised and defeated by 21 galleys led by the Genoese Gianettino Doria (nephew and substitute of the grand admiral Andrea Doria, then in Sicily) and the Spaniard Berenguer de Requesens. The commander of the Ottoman Navy, Hayreddin Barbarossa, had committed Dragut to raid the Italian coast after his victories in the Adriatic Sea the year before. As the crews of the Ottoman warships were ashore, distributing the booty from recent raids, the Imperial-Genoese fleet easily overtook them, taking all 11 Ottoman galleys and making 1,200 prisoners, among them Dragut, who was carried to Genoa and put, together with his captains, to row in Andrea Doria's galleys.