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The Navies of the Medici

THE NAVIES OF THE MEDICI:

THE FLORENTINE NAVY AND NAVY OF THE SACRED
MILITARY ORDER OF ST STEPHEN, 1547–1648

Marco Gemignani

AT the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Republic of Florence obtained its
long-awaited connection with the Tyrrhenian Sea, when it conquered Pisa in
1406. In 1421, it expanded further when it acquired the coastal towns of
Leghorn and Porto Pisano from the Genoese.1 Before long, Florentine galleys
began to ply the Mediterranean and to push through the Strait of Gibraltar,
trading as far away as Flanders and England. In the last quarter of the century,
Florence, whose government was by now largely run by the Medici family, was
engaged in a war against the kingdom of Naples and the Papal States. The huge
expenses sustained during this conflict, the danger of piracy, and the competi-
tion from Basque, Catalan, English and French merchant ships, which could
import and export goods from the Florentine State at costs notably lower than
those of the Florentine galleys, forced the Florentines to disarm their fleet.
In 1537, Cosimo I de’ Medici became Duke of Florence and began a foreign
policy aimed at increasing his own dominions and reducing the influence of
Emperor Charles V over Florence.2 Cosimo I achieved his first success in 1543,
when the Emperor relinquished the fortresses of Leghorn and Florence.3 The
duke was aware that he could not withdraw completely from the protection of
the Habsburgs, so instead he tried to alter the alliance between Florence and the
Empire to create a relationship whereby he became the key supporter of the
Habsburgs’ presence in the Italian peninsula. Cosimo I was convinced that
Charles V would agree to this, preferring to tolerate Cosimo’s plans for terri-
torial acquisitions, along with the aim of greater autonomy for the Florentine
state, rather than cause friction.

1 Michael E. Mallett, ‘Pisa and Florence in the Fifteenth Century: Aspects of the Period of
the first Florentine Domination’, in Florentine Studies. Politics and Society in Renaissance
Florence, ed. by N. Rubinstein (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1968), 413.
2 Rudolf von Albertini, Firenze dalla Repubblica al Principato. Storia e coscienza politica,
translated into Italian by C. Cristofolini (Turin: Einaudi, 1970), 281.
3 Furio Diaz, Il Granducato di Toscana – I Medici, vol. XIII of G. Galasso, ed., Storia
d’Italia (Turin: UTET, 1976), 83; Giorgio Spini, Cosimo I e l’indipendenza del principato
mediceo (Florence: Vallecchi, 1980), 195 ff.

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170 Marco Gemignani

Image not available

Map 1. The Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the Tyrrhenian Sea

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The Navies of the Medici 171

The opportunity for Cosimo I to show the emperor how useful the contribu-
tion of a small state such as the Duchy of Florence could be arose with the
increasing Muslim presence in the Mediterranean. Control of this sea, which
had been maintained by Christians for centuries, was brought into question by
the Islamic fleet’s resounding victory in 1538 in the waters off Preveza and by
Charles V’s failure in 1541 to conquer Algiers, the principal base of Muslim
privateers.4 The defeat at Preveza gave new vigour to the Barbary privateers,
intensifying their voyages to seize Christian merchant ships and to raid the
coastal towns and villages of Spain and the Italian peninsula.
Cosimo I realised that navies were acquiring increasing importance, given the
evolution of the international political situation, and thus felt it necessary to
devote his time to creating his own naval force to gain greater recognition at an
international level and to protect the coasts of the state from Muslim raids.
Moreover, he needed to safeguard the maritime communication lines leading to
Leghorn, the main port of the duchy. In particular, Cosimo I realised the need to
protect trade, especially at sea. To encourage the merchants to import and to
export their commodities from Leghorn, it was necessary to reassure them with
the presence of warships to keep the waters of the northern Tyrrhenian safe from
privateers. The Duke of Florence, always aiming to support commerce, allowed
his own galleys at least partial self-financing, through freight charges. He
would, on occasion, permit merchants to load goods onto his own ships, es-
pecially those destined for Naples and Messina.
As he consolidated power in his dominions, Cosimo I began to implement the
outline of a naval policy, partly resuming the one begun in the fifteenth century.
He started work on the construction of an arsenal in Pisa, along the north shore
of the Arno River, using the structures of the pre-existing port. In 1547, he
launched the Pisana, the first galley built entirely within the territory of the
Florentine state, and he soon added a further three galleys. His choice of
building galleys, as opposed to other types of ships, was dictated both by the
technical knowledge of the men working in the Arsenal, most of whom orig-
inated from the territories of the Republic of Genoa, and by the lack of sailors
trained to utilise the complex equipment of sailing ships. In addition, the galley
was considered, at that time, to be an excellent warship, which, thanks to its
oars, did not need to rely on the wind and was thus more manoeuvrable than a
sailing ship. Obviously, the low freeboard limited the use of galleys to the
months between spring and autumn, when there were few storms in the
Mediterranean. In winter, the galleys remained disarmed and in port.5 Within

4 Alberto Santoni, Da Lepanto ad Hampton Roads (Milan: Mursia, 1990), 18; Antonio
Perria, Andrea Doria il corsaro (Milan: Sugarco, 1982), 158–64, 177–87; Roger C. Anderson,
Naval Wars in the Levant 1559–1853 (Liverpool: University Press, 1952), 4–5.
5 For just two brief periods, at the beginning of the 1570s and at the beginning of 1630s, the
Medici would also have had at their disposal some galleasses, which however would soon be
revealed as unsuitable for the privateering war both for their low speed and because of the
excessive expenses of maintenance. In addition, haphazardly, the Medici’s fleet would have

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172 Marco Gemignani

the scope of the naval policy that Cosimo I intended to follow, the duke
attempted to appropriate bases in the northern Tyrrhenian Sea, to be used both
by his own growing fleet and as support bases for Spanish ships, since these
vessels preferred to sail along the coast rather than follow the direct route
between the Iberian and Italian peninsulas.
From 1540, Cosimo I tried to convince Charles V to hand over control of the
island of Elba and the state of Piombino, where he had sustained substantial
expenses for fortifications. In 1548, Cosimo obtained both of these, although
the possession of Piombino lasted little more than a month. The Duke of Flor-
ence, however, did not give up and continued trying to retrieve Piombino, whilst
also intensifying work at Portoferraio, which had remained in his possession.
His efforts resulted in an ephemeral success when in August 1552 he signed a
treaty with his cousin Iacopo VI Aragona Appiano for the state of Piombino to
be redelivered to him.6
The increase in the Medici ships, the work undertaken in Pisa, Portoferraio
and Leghorn to furnish these ships with effective land-based infrastructures and
the promulgation of a set of rules for the fleet, its operation and organisation,
aroused the apprehensions of both the republics of Venice and Genoa. The two
states saw that Florence had built a navy from scratch and, if it continued to
develop at the same rate, would soon be able to threaten their positions in the
hierarchy of Christian fleets in the Mediterranean.7 In fact, the Medici court’s
policy also aroused anxiety in Spain. King Philip II, who succeeded his father
Charles V in 1556, hesitated for some time after the victorious war of 1555
(fought alongside Florentine troops against Siena) before investing Cosimo I
with the conquered town and its territory, including the Maremma coast.8

included some small galleys (called in Italian galeotte) and some galleons, especially at the
beginning of the seventeenth century. About the galleys built in the Arsenal of Pisa it is neces-
sary to note that a characteristic that distinguished them from other ships of the type in
service in the remainder of Mediterranean navies was that they had the smallest holds.
Although it reduced their range, it did give them the possibility of going faster in the water.
6 Archivio di Stato di Firenze (hereafter ASF), Manoscritti, 128, fol. 92r; Licurgo
Cappelletti, Storia della città e stato di Piombino dalle origini fino all’anno 1814 (Leghorn:
Giusti, 1897), 159 ff. Besides the desire to hold Elba and Piombino, Cosimo I also showed an
interest in Corsica, Civitavecchia and finally succeeded in acquiring, in the name of his
consort Eleonora of Toledo, only the island of Giglio and the Castiglione of Pescaia. See
Rodolfo Bernardini, ‘Due insuccessi della politica estera di Cosimo I de’ Medici: i tentativi di
annessione della Corsica e dell’Ordine di S. Lazzaro all’Ordine di S. Stefano P.M.’, Quaderni
Stefaniani, 7 (1988), 27–42.
7 The Venetians particularly feared repercussions for their relations with Turkey because of
the privateering activity in the eastern Mediterranean by the Medici’s galleys, so much so that
they seized one of them that stopped in Cyprus in July 1559; see Marco Gemignani,
‘Rappresaglia veneziana per atti di pirateria in Levante (1559–1561)’, Rivista storica, 9
(1996), 2, 38–44.
8 One must remember that in 1556 Charles V in abdicating had divided the dominions of the
House of Habsburg between his brother Ferdinand I, who got, besides the title of emperor,
Austria, Bohemia and Hungary, and his son Philip II, who got Spain, Flanders, the posses-
sions in the Italian peninsula and the colonies in the New World.

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The Navies of the Medici 173

The treaty, signed on 3 July 1557, on the one hand granted Siena to Cosimo I
making him Duke of Florence and Siena, and on the other allowed Spain to keep
Mount Argentario and the towns of Orbetello, Port’Ercole and Talamone, which
belonged to the defeated Siena, to make up the state of Presidios. The treaty also
forced Cosimo I to hand over Piombino and Elba to Iacopo VI Aragona
Appiano, allowing him to retain only Portoferraio.9 Repudiation of the debts due
from Charles V, Philip II and Iacopo VI was a serious blow for Florentine
finances. Furthermore, Cosimo I was laden with the burden of supplying the
Spanish with troops, ammunition, provisions and galleys.10
The requirement to provide Philip II with men, supplies and ships at the same
time reflected the Duke of Florence and Siena’s correct intuition about the mari-
time needs of Spain in the Mediterranean. At the same time, he also appre-
hended the Catholic King’s desire to keep the Medici navy under control.
Despite this, Cosimo I decided to continue his policy of naval expansion. To
carry this out, Cosimo named Piero Machiavelli, son of the famous Niccolò,
Commissioner of the Galleys in March, 1557.11 Machiavelli also saw the impor-
tance of the fleet and suggested to Cosimo I that by increasing the number of
ships he could become ‘the needle in the balance’ for possible future disputes
which were likely to arise between France and Spain. He also made the duke
aware of the need to maintain a good relationship with the Papacy, given the
importance that religion posed in society at the time, marked by contrasts
between Protestants and Catholics. This last point also coincided with Cosimo
I’s firm belief that religious stability would support the status quo in the states
and would serve to maintain the power of the dominant classes. This policy
toward the Papacy did not, however, succeed straight away and it was only with
the election of Pius IV as Pope on 25 December 1559 that relationships between
the Roman and Florentine courts improved, thanks to the financial and diplo-
matic support of Cosimo I.12
Secure in the new Pope’s favour, Cosimo I presented a series of applications
to Pius IV in January 1560 through his loyal secretary, Bartolomeo Concini.
Among them was an application for the creation of a chivalric Order.13
The Duke of Florence and Siena, during this period, had written a memo
pointing out the three targets that he and his eventual successor would have to

9 Arnaldo d’Addario, Il problema senese nella storia italiana della prima metà del
Cinquecento (Florence: Le Monnier, 1958), 399–424.
10 The document of investiture of Cosimo I as Duke of Siena and the terms of the treaty on 3
July 1557 are in ASF, Manoscritti, 128, fols 80r–92r.
11 Ibid., Mediceo del Principato, 468, fol. 48r.
12 Josefs Gelmi, I papi, translated into Italian by C. Milesi (Milan: Rizzoli, 1986), 167.
13 ‘Memoria di quanto ho passato in Roma con Sua Santità per ordine di S[ua] Eccellenza
dalli 15 sin alli 22 di gennaro 1559 [ab inc.]’, see ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 616, file 27,
fols not numbered (hereafter n. nn). The other appeals concerned the nomination to cardinal
of Giovanni, seventeen- year-old son of Cosimo I, the establishment of bishoprics in the
Medici’s territories, the dispatch of an apostolic messenger to the Florentine court and finally
the preparation of a visit of Cosimo I to the Pope.

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174 Marco Gemignani

follow to further strengthen the regional-level state that he governed.14 These

three targets were the creation of an Order, the formation of a cavalry unit and
the continued expansion of the ducal navy. In the creation, organisation and
operation of this new military Order the duke was inspired by the already
existing Orders of the Knights of Alcantara, Calatrava, Christ, St Iacopo of the
Sword and St John. Those admitted into the new Order would undertake the
defence of both the Catholic faith and the Medici state. To develop its military
activities, Cosimo I thought that the Order would initially have just two galleys,
using other resources to increase their strength ashore as funds allowed. The
duke provided most of the initial funding. In his memorandum, Cosimo I chose
Pisa as principal base for the Order, where a convent would be built. Barracks
were also to be built at Portoferraio.
In constituting this military Order the Duke of Florence and Siena success-
fully combined his three aims in a way that was advantageous for both his
foreign and internal policies. The first objective was to improve Florentine re-
lations with the papacy, which, as mentioned previously, would also have benefi-
cial effects on relations with other Catholic powers and help to guarantee the
loyalty of his subjects. The Order satisfied the second aim and provided the
duchy with a noble institution of elevated rank on the basis of the extremely
selective criteria for recruiting its members. This aspect of the Order would also
raise Cosimo I’s personal prestige, as well as the stature of both his family and
of the state he governed. The chivalric Order would serve to tie the duke to
members of the noblest and most important families not only of the duchy but
also of other Catholics states. The third objective that Cosimo I attained with the
establishment of the Order, of which he became Grand Master, was to carry out
the duty of fighting against Islam, and for that warships were needed. Thus, the
Medici family would have had at its disposal a fleet which was independent of
that controlled under his title as the Duke of Florence and Siena. Thanks to the
good relationship between Florence and Rome, Pius IV signed the breve Dilecte
Fili, on 1 October 1561, authorising Cosimo I to create the Order. Four months
later on 1 February 1562, the Pope signed the breve His Quae approving the
statutes of the Chivalric Militia which was dedicated to St Stephen, Pope and
Martyr, and had as its insignia a red cross with eight points on a white back-
ground.15
On 15 March following, during a grand ceremony in Pisa’s cathedral, Giorgio
Cornaro, bishop of Treviso and apostolic messenger at the Florentine court,
invested Cosimo I as Grand Master of the Order. Before long, Cosimo I, as
detailed in his memorandum, ordered the construction of the convent of St
Stephen’s Militia in Pisa, but did not proceed with the original plan to have a

14 Ibid., 327, fols 7r–8v.

15 The new Order owes its name to the fact that St Stephen’s day was 2 August, the day the
Medici’s troops defeated the escaped Florentine rebels at Montemurlo in 1537 and the sol-
diers of Pietro Strozzi at Scannagallo in 1554 during the War of Siena.

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The Navies of the Medici 175

barracks for its members in Portoferraio.16 Cosimo I and his successors main-
tained the Order’s navy, providing for any and all of their operating expenses. As
to expenses for the ducal navy, including the acquisition of matériel, weapons,
provisions and the payment of salaries for personnel not members of the Order
both at sea and in service at installations on land, the full burden fell on ducal
finances. The treasury of the Order of St Stephen, for the whole of the sixteenth
and for most of the seventeenth century, was limited to paying only the salaries
and other living expenses of the Order’s knights, that is of the admiral, the
knights commanding the ships and of the infantry units of the Duchy (and later
the Grand Duchy) who were often on board ships, and of the other members of
the Chivalric Militia who, voluntarily or by obligation, sailed both on the St
Stephen’s galleys and on those of the ducal navy.17
In March 1563 the first General Assembly of the Order was held in Pisa,
presided over by Cosimo I, during which the highest-ranking knights were
elected for the following three years and Giulio de’ Medici, a distant relative of
Cosimo I, was chosen as admiral.18 Following what he had written in his memo-
randum, Cosimo I decided to give two galleys to the Order of St Stephen from
the ducal navy which had suffered some losses recently that partly jeopardised
its operational ability.19 The ship assigned to carry out the duty of Capitana
(flagship) of St Stephen’s fleet was the Lupa, while the Padrona (vice-flagship)
was the Fiorenza. Both were delivered to Admiral Giulio de’ Medici on 30 May
1563 in the port of Leghorn.20
The Order’s first naval mission took place in cooperation with the ducal

16 In the convent all the knights lived for three years of apprenticeship during which they
would have learned the basics of mathematics, geometry, cosmography, history, geography,
and land and naval tactics, besides which they would have been trained in gymnastics, wres-
tling, swimming, fencing, and use of crossbow, arc and portable fire weapons. In the three
years also included were six months for the Professione al Convento during which the knights
had to participate in all religious ceremonies in the Church of the Order. Another semester
was devoted to further practical training in both naval and military activity. See Mario Salmi,
Il palazzo dei cavalieri e la scuola normale superiore di Pisa (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1932),
1–20; Ewa Karwacka Codini, ‘Edifici dell’Ordine di Santo Stefano a Pisa: aspetti
architettonici e artistici’, Quaderni Stefaniani, 11 (1992), 133–95; Rodolfo Bernardini,
‘Istruzione e obblighi militari dei cavalieri carovanisti da Cosimo I a Pietro Leopoldo I’, in
L’istituto della Carovana nell’Ordine di Santo Stefano. Atti del Convegno, Pisa 10 maggio
1996 (Pisa: ETS, 1996), 230–1.
17 Only during the years from 1625 to 1649 did the Order, on precise application of the then
Grand Duke Ferdinando II, partially contribute to the maintenance of the galley; see Archivio
di Stato di Pisa (hereafter ASP), Ordine dei Cavalieri di S. Stefano, 7118, fols n. nn.; 7119,
fols. n. nn.; 7120, fols. n. nn.; 7121, fols n. nn.; 7122, fols n. nn.; 7123, fols n. nn.
18 Ibid., 4391, fols 3v–4r.
19 From May 1560 to February 1563 five galleys and a small galley were sunk or captured by
the Muslims, cf. ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 212, fol. 83v; 214, fol. 30r; 219, fols
279v–280r; 504, fols 287r–288v, 321r–323v; Archivio di Stato di Genova (hereafter ASG),
Archivio Segreto 2795, file 1541–65. ‘Lettere di Cosimo IE de Medici, detto il Grande, primo
Gran Duca di Toscana alla Repubblica di Genova’, fol. 111r.
20 ASF, Manoscritti, 128, fols 257v–258r.

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176 Marco Gemignani

galleys Capitana and Regina, when the four galleys went to Spain to be at the
disposal of King Philip II for taking supplies to Oran in North Africa, a town
besieged by the Muslims. While sailing alone towards the Spanish port of
Tortosa to have repairs done arising from earlier damage, the St Stephen’s
Capitana was attacked and captured by two Algerian ships.21 Cosimo I was
greatly disappointed by this debut of the Order’s navy and, although he did not
start proceedings against the admiral of the militia, he soon ordered his
dismissal. From 6 March 1564 Cosimo employed the Fiorenza, together with the
ducal galleys, under the command of Iacopo VI Aragona Appiano, who had
previously commanded the Medici navy from 1552 to 1555.22 In the meantime
Cosimo I knew that Philip II was hiring galleys to transport an expeditionary
force to conquer Peñon de Velez, a place along the northern Africa coast oppo-
site Malaga. The Duke of Florence and Siena, taking advantage of the Spanish
sovereign’s great need for ships, succeeded in having set aside the accord made
with Philip II in 1557, by which he had been forced to lend his ships without
payment. In fact, in the contract (called asiento) signed by the king of Spain on
17 May 1564, Spain agreed to take ten galleys on lease for five years, each of
which was to have a full complement of the necessary rowers and a crew of at
least sixty-five sailors. These ships were placed under the command of Don
Garcia de Toledo, Philip II’s General Captain of the Sea. In return, Cosimo I’s
father-in-law, the Spanish sovereign, would pay a substantial amount of money
to the Duke of Florence and Siena for the leasing of the ships.23 The ten galleys
rented to the Spanish included the Order’s Fiorenza. Although the expedition to
conquer Peñon de Velez ended in success, there were many deaths among
Cosimo I’s crews, due to a contagious disease. Among the dead was the
Commissioner of the Galleys, Piero Machiavelli.
In March, 1569, Cosimo I again put his galleys and the Order’s Fiorenza at
the disposal of the Spanish, as he had done in previous years. That year, when
the squadron was going west to the Iberian peninsula, it encountered bad
weather. As meteorological conditions worsened, the galleys sought shelter on
the island of Pomegues, not far from Marseilles. Despite Aragona Appiano’s

21 Ibid., Mediceo del Principato, 500, fols 85r, 163r–164r, 343r and v. Loss of Capitana, like
losses of other ships during the sixteenth century afflicted the Order of St Stephen. No trace
is found of the loss in the first works published that have dealt with the navy, such as Fulvio
Fontana, I pregi della Toscana nell’imprese più segnalate de’ Cavalieri di Santo Stefano
(Florence: Pier Mattia Miccioni e Michele Nestenus, 1701); Aldigherio Fontana, Le glorie
immortali della Sacra, ed Illustrissima Religione di S. Stefano tanto nelle Armi, quanto nelle
Lettere (Milan: Sirtori, 1706) (after Fano: Bernardino Vigolini, 1708); Giorgio Viviano Mar-
chesi, La Galeria dell’Onore Ove sono descritte le Segnalate Memorie del Sagr’Ordine
Militare di S. Stefano P. e M. e de’ suoi Cavalieri (Forlì: Marozzi, 1735).
22 ASP, Ordine dei Cavalieri di S. Stefano, 45, fol. 62v; ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2077,
fol. 63r; ASF, Miscellanea Medicea, 23, file 28, fols 3r–8r. In 1565 Iacopo VI would have
been placed side by side in command with his half-brother Alfonso Aragona Appiano, natural
son of Iacopo V, of the Order of St Stephen on 25 May 1563: see ASP, Ordine dei Cavalieri di
S. Stefano, 600, file 3, fols n. nn.; 145, file 90, fol. n. n.; 1186, fol. 10r.
23 ASF, Miscellanea Medicea, 23, file 29, fol. 1r and v.

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The Navies of the Medici 177

recommendation to wait in the shelter of the island for the weather to improve,
the Spanish ordered the ships to depart as soon as the mountainous seas and
strong wind appeared to be calming. On 19 April, while they were sailing across
the Gulf of Lions, they were caught in a storm and five galleys were lost.24
Dismayed at the loss of these ships due to the stubborness of the Spanish who
wanted to continue the trip at all costs, Cosimo I complained to both Philip II
and to Don Garcia de Toledo.25 Despite his position, Cosimo I was obliged to
accept the losses without compensation. During the following months, the
Arsenal in Pisa began work on building new galleys. If 1569 had been an
unlucky year for the Medici’s navy, the same cannot be said for Cosimo I, who,
thanks to the good relationship established with the new Pope Pius V, succeeded
in acquiring the title of Grand Duke of Tuscany. At the beginning of 1570,
Cosimo I continued construction of more ships and annulled the asiento with
Philip II when the Madrid court failed to pay the remuneration due. At that
point, Spanish finances were heavily overcommitted to maintaining the troops
containing the revolt in Granada and in fighting in Flanders.26
The following July, the Turks landed on the island of Cyprus, then under
Venetian control. In response, an accord was reached in August between Venice,
Philip II and Pius V, to send a fleet of galleys, commanded by Marc’ Antonio
Colonna, against the Ottoman fleet.27 Cosimo I intensified diplomatic relations
with the Papal States in order to sign an asiento with Pius V. The negotiations
continued over the following months, when the Pope needed additional ships
after his twelve galleys had gone to the Levant in an unsuccessful attempt to aid
Cyprus and to defeat the Turks. Only three of them returned in November, all in
a sorry state. The remaining nine had been lost in bad weather.28
In order to place twelve galleys at the Pope’s disposal, Cosimo I had to recruit
new workmen for the Arsenal of Pisa. Numerous experienced woodcutters were
brought from Lombardy to cut the necessary trees in Tuscany for the construc-

24 The Padrona and Colonna were sunk at sea with their entire crews. Toscana and Lupa
were wrecked on the cliffs in Sardinia and the Pace had the same fate on the island of St Peter,
all three losing many men. ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 541, fol. 82r; 294r and v; 541a, fols
668 bis r–669 bis r.
25 Ibid., 233, fols 16r, 18v–19r.
26 Fernand Braudel, Civiltà e imperi del Mediterraneo nell’età di Filippo II, translated into
Italian by C. Pischedda (Turin: Einaudi, 1986), vol. I, 1099–1148; ASF, Mediceo del
Principato, 551, fols 318r and v, 329r; 553, fol. 9r and v; 554, fols 210r and v, 245r; ASP, Pia
Casa di Misericordia, 110, fol. n. n.
27 ASG, Magistrato delle galee 2, fols n. nn.; ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 235, fol. 113v;
562, fols 5r and v, 21r, 27r and v.
28 The ships of Venice, Spain and the Papal States took some weeks to reach the waters off
Crete. By then their commanders knew that on 9 September Nicosia and a large part of
Cyprus had fallen to the Turks. Only Famagosta remained. Since the Winter season was
approaching and it would have been impossible to provide for the crews in Crete because of
the lack of supplies, Marc’Antonio Colonna ordered the squadrons to move to ports of the
Italian peninsula. During the passage, storms sank numerous ships. ASF, Mediceo del
Principato, 235, fol. 116v; 554, fol. 159r and v.

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178 Marco Gemignani

tion of these ships.29 Thanks to this productive effort, when the Holy League
was founded on 20 May 1571, Cosimo I was able to lend Pius V the St Stephen’s
Fiorenza and another eleven Grand Duchy galleys.30 These twelve ships,
carrying the Pope’s insignia, participated in the famous battle of Lepanto on 7
October 1571. The only loss among them was the Fiorenza, which, having been
seriously damaged in the fight, was scuttled by knights of the Order at the end of
the battle.31
In order to replace the Order’s unit lost at Lepanto, Cosimo I ordered, in early
1572, that the next galley to be launched from the Arsenal of Pisa be assigned to
the Order, christening it Fortuna.32 That same year, the Grand Duke of Tuscany
decided again to lend his twelve galleys to the Papacy. Although Pius V had died
on 1 May 1572, his successor, Gregory XIII, continued his policy against the
Ottoman Turks. At the same time, Cosimo I granted in an asiento to Philip II,
two galleasses, a small galley (recently built in Pisa) and a galleon, which would
also serve in the Christian fleet. During the summer, the Christian fleet,
commanded by Don Juan of Austria, sought to fight the Turks, who preferred
instead to flee. After an attempt by the Christians to take possession of
Navarino failed, Don Juan authorised all ships furnished by Cosimo I to return
to Leghorn that November.33
In the meantime, Cosimo I was apparently struck down by a type of progres-
sive paralysis, which eventually caused him to lose the use of his right hand and
his speech. As it progressed, he gradually entrusted the direction of the state
and the Order of St Stephen to his son, Francesco, who, after his father’s death
on 21 April 1574, became Grand Duke of Tuscany and Grand Master of the St
Stephen Militia with the name of Francesco I.34 Even before his father’s death,
Francesco found himself administering a naval complex of considerable size.
Besides the small ships, it included two galleasses, a galleon, a small galley and
twelve galleys, one of which was the Fortuna belonging to the Order of St
Stephen. The burden of maintaining a similar fleet had proved to be hard on the
Grand Duchy’s finances. Earlier his father, Cosimo I, had removed Iacopo VI
Aragona Appiano from the position of commander of the Grand Duchy’s navy,
perhaps to save money, and nominally replaced him with his son, nineteen-
year-old Pietro de’ Medici, with the agreement of his older brother, Prince
Francesco.35

29 Ibid., 562, fols 150r and v, 221r and v.

30 Ibid., Manoscritti, 128, fol. 529v; Archivio di Stato di Lucca, Anziani al tempo della
libertà, 552, fol. 17v; ibid., Biblioteca Manoscritti, 13, 668–70.
31 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 566, fol. 102r.
32 ASP, Ordine dei Cavalieri di S. Stefano, 1366, fol. 484r.
33 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 240, fol. 47v; 241, fol. 71r; 583, fols 269r and v, 293r and v,
323r and v.
34 Ibid., Manoscritti, 128, fols 578v, 619r.
35 Ibid., Mediceo del Principato, 241, fol. 86v. Since Pietro de’ Medici did not have any ex-
perience in the naval field, Cosimo I thought about placing beside him as lieutenant the Flor-

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The Navies of the Medici 179

Another important change concerning the St Stephen’s navy came on 22

January 1573, when the admiral of the Order, Tommaso de’ Medici, was made
captain of Fortuna.36 This appointment was not intended to be a demotion from
admiral of the militia. An admiral was responsible, theoretically, for a fleet, but
at that time it consisted of only one galley. This appointment was to show the
wish of the Florentine court that the head of St Stephen’s navy should be an
experienced sailor, something which was not true of the man who had held that
title since the spring of 1564.37
Cosimo I and Francesco both hoped that in 1573 Gregory XIII would have
again hired their galleys, but following the peace between Venice and Constanti-
nople on 12 March, the Holy League of Venice, Spain and the Papal States
ceased to exist and the Pope did not renew the contract of asiento with Florence.
Similarly, Philip II was not willing to contract for either the Grand Duchy’s
ships nor those of St Stephen for his service, since he would hardly have been
able to pay to lease them. These circumstances forced the Medici to decommis-
sion a large part of the fleet on which Cosimo I had, over the years, lavished so
much money and for which he had held such high hopes. Agreeing with his
father, Prince Francesco was forced in April 1573 to dismantle two galleasses
and a small galley, maintaining in service only one galleon and six galleys, of
which five were Tuscan and one of the Order of St Stephen. The prince did this
to prevent Philip II from borrowing numerous units from the Grand Duchy of
Tuscany without honouring his financial agreement, as he had done in the past.
The prince decided to increase the number of galleys of the Order to four and, at
the same time, to reduce the Tuscan number to two. In this way, the Florentine
court hoped to be able to justify refusal of the Spanish application for the loan of
its galleys, showing that most of the ships at the base in Leghorn belonged to the
Order of St Stephen, an autonomous corporate body separate from the Grand
Duchy of Tuscany.
With regard to the employment of the fleet, both Cosimo I and Francesco,
despite their intentions not to lend their own units to Spain, knew that Philip II
was assembling a fleet under the command of Don Juan of Austria to attempt an
attack on North Africa. In order for the Medici to maintain good relations with
the Spanish court, they thought it a good idea to send both the Grand Duchy’s
two galleys and the Order’s four galleys to serve in the Christian fleet, without
any remuneration.38
After Francesco became Grand Duke and Grand Master, it became apparent

entine Simeone Rossermini, an expert soldier who had already sailed for some time on board
the Medici’s ships, see ibid., 240, fol. 59r and v.
36 Ibid., fol. 60r.
37 Nevertheless Tommaso de’ Medici did not have the opportunity to do much during that
voyage. A short while after he was named captain of Fortuna, he fell ill and was forced to ask
the court to be exempted from going to sea, ASP, Ordine dei Cavalieri di S. Stefano, 1322, fol.
41r.
38 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 4904, fol. 28r and v.

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180 Marco Gemignani

that, once again, neither Phillip II nor Gregory XIII wanted to use his ships. At
this point, Francesco I decommissioned the Grand Duchy’s two galleys and sent
the Order’s four ships on an offensive operation in the central Mediterranean
along the Barbary coast and to the Levant. Ships based at Leghorn had not
carried out such a mission for many years, so, on 13 May, Francesco I issued a
set of instructions to be followed on board the galleys of St Stephen under the
command of the admiral of the Order, Tommaso de’ Medici.39 During this
five-month cruise, the Order’s ships sank or captured eleven Muslim ships and
imprisoned around three hundred enemy sailors.40
In 1575, Francesco I put his galleys at the disposal of Philip II, who ordered
them to assemble at Naples under the command of Don Juan of Austria. To
prevent idleness among the Tuscan crews in port, the ships of the Order made
two voyages along the North African coast, during which they tried to attack the
town of Susa. At first, the galleys were unable to approach the coast, because of
rough seas. A second attempt also failed, due to an error in navigation. The
troops disembarked about ten miles from the Tunisian town, but, making do, the
Knights of St Stephen had to be satisfied with ransacking the small fortress of
Reclia.41
This small success at Reclia represented the first amphibious operation
completed by the Order. Actions of the same kind would be carried out with
increasing frequency in the following years, especially when, following
Francesco I’s death on 20 October 1587, his brother, Ferdinando I, became
Grand Duke of Tuscany and Grand Master of the Order of St Stephen.42
Ferdinando I instituted a foreign policy aimed at further loosening the ties
between Tuscany and Spain, while at the same wanting closer relations with
France. To achieve this, Ferdinando I arranged the marriage of his own niece,
Maria de’ Medici, daughter of Francesco I, to King Henry IV in October 1600.43
However, neither the new blood ties nor the conspicuous dowry provided by
Ferdinando I served to improve relationships between Florence and Paris,
instead the Grand Duke was forced to look toward reconciliation with Spain.
The decision of the new Spanish king, Philip III, to conquer Algiers furnished
Ferdinando I with an occasion. In order to transport the Spanish expeditionary
force to Africa in 1598, Phillip III was forced to ask the Italian states to furnish

39 Ibid., Carte Strozziane, I serie 146, fols 19r–20r; a similar copy is ibid., Mediceo del
Principato, 1203, file 1, fols 192r–193v.
40 Biblioteca Comunale di Siena, Manoscritti, K.III.56, fol. 2r. Many of the Muslims taken
imprisoned in this case, as in the preceding and succeeding ones, were employed as rowers on
board the Medici’s galleys.
41 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 678, fol. 204v. For further details about this operation see
Marco Gemignani, ‘Il concetto di operazione anfibia del Sacro Militare Ordine di Santo
Stefano sotto i gran magisteri di Francesco I e di Ferdinando I de’ Medici’, in Aspetti ed
attualità del potere marittimo in Mediterraneo nei secoli XII–XVI. Atti del Convegno, Napoli
27–9 ottobre 1997 (Rome: Ufficio Storico della Marina Militare, 1999), 173–5.
42 ASF, Manoscritti, 129, fol. 260r.
43 Diaz, Il Granducato di Toscana – I Medici, 288–9.

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The Navies of the Medici 181

him with ships.44 Seizing the opportunity for improving relations, Ferdinando I
put the Order of St Stephen’s four galleys at the disposal of the Spanish sover-
eign. The ships eventually joined the Christian fleet that was being assembled in
Sicily under command of Gian Andrea Doria in the summer of 1601.
This large fleet set sail from Messina on 5 August 1601, and called at
Majorca. En route they stood offshore near Algiers for a time while people who
were in contact with Doria tried to disrupt the town as a prelude for an assault by
the troops of Philip III.45 These plots in which the commander in chief of the
Christian fleet put so much faith did not produce the desired results and Doria
withdrew, losing the opportunity to bring an end to Barbary privateering.46
Subsequently, Ferdinando I allowed Spain to use the Order’s navy only occa-
sionally. Instead, he increasingly used cruises to protect the shores of Tuscany
from Muslim raids and to undertake raids along the coasts of Greece, Turkey
and North Africa.47
The attacks against the Ottomans’ coastal towns and fortresses usually had
the advantage of supplying prisoners which could be used as rowers on board
the galleys, allowing the St Stephen’s ships to boast to other Christian states of
their navy’s strength, demonstrated by such clear successes against the
Muslims.48 In August 1607, the Order’s navy, now increased to eight galleys and
strengthened by sailing ships, was used for executing a more ambitious enter-
prise than the usual amphibious operations of the ‘hit and run’ type.49
Ferdinando I made plans to conquer Famagusta, as the first stage in occupying

44 Godfrey Fisher, Barbary Legend. War, Trade and Piracy in North Africa 1415–1830
(Westport: Greenwood Press, 1974), 129–30.
45 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 295, fol. 138v; 2081, fol. 762r.
46 Ibid., 904, fol. 263r.
47 When the Squadron of St Stephen operated with the ships of Spain, of the Order of St
John and other states of the Italian peninsula, friction often occurred over precedence. Some-
times incidents even went as far as shoot-outs with casualties of Christian sailors and soldiers,
as happened in the port of Messina in September 1614; see Marco Gemignani, ‘Esempi di
collaborazione in seno all’Armata Navale cattolica’, Quaderni Stefaniani, 14 (1995), 94–103.
48 To spread the news of these victories and to perpetuate their memory, the Grand Duke,
besides ordering the painting of pictures and frescos, also occasionally printed brochures re-
porting on the amphibious operations and the results achieved; see for example Relatione
dell’impresa della Prevesa fatta per ordine del Serenissimo Gran Duca di Toscana. Dalle
Galere della Religione di Santo Stefano, seguita a 3. di Maggio 1605 (Florence: Sermartelli,
1605); Relazione di tre imprese fatte dalle galere di Santo Stefano, quest’anno MDCVI, cioè
di Laiazzo in Soria, di Namur in Caramania, e della Finica in Satalia (Florence: Sermartelli,
1606); Relazione della presa della Fortezza, e porto di Seleucia, detta Agliman, in
Caramania; e di Due Galere Capitane, & altri Vasselli Turcheschj. Fatta da sei Galere della
Religione di Santo Stefano il giorno dell’Ascensione 16. di Maggio 1613 (Florence: Cosimo
Giunti, 1613). The victories of that period by the Order’s navy can almost all be attributed,
from a tactical point of view, to the ability of St Stephen’s Admiral Iacopo Inghirami who, in
addition to deep knowledge of maritime problems, also had solid experience of land opera-
tions developed during his service in the Wars of Religion in France at the end of the sixteenth
century. For further details on his life, see Marco Gemignani, Il cavaliere Iacopo Inghirami al
servizio dei granduchi di Toscana (Pisa: ETS, 1996).
49 ASF, Carte Strozziane, I serie 147, fol. 249r and v.

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182 Marco Gemignani

the whole of Cyprus. With Cyprus under his command, he could create an
advanced base to begin expansion in the eastern Mediterranean, using the
support of the populations of that area, which at that time were in revolt against
the Turkish Empire. Through this plan, Ferdinando I would have increased, by
almost half, the territory of his dominions and, moreover he would have been
able to add the title of king to that of Grand Duke. With possession of Cyprus,
Ferdinando I would clearly have garnered respect from rulers of the other states
of the Italian peninsula with whom he often disagreed in matters of precedence.
However, because of the lack of coordination among the forces employed, the
operation ended in failure. Not wanting to appear discouraged by this debacle,
Ferdinando I resumed the usual amphibious operations of the ‘hit and run’ type,
and undertook a raid against the Algerian town of Bône (Al Anabas). During
this operation, the Knights of St Stephen and Tuscan troops, at the cost of
forty-seven casualties, captured 1464 prisoners and killed 470 Muslims.50
When Ferdinando I died on 7 February 1609, his son, Cosimo II, became the
new Grand Duke of Tuscany and Grand Master of the Order. Under his direc-
tion, the Order kept on effecting only small raids against coastal objectives, con-
tinuing defensive cruises in the northern Tyrrhenian Sea and offensive cruises in
both the Aegean Sea and in the central and eastern Mediterranean. During these
years, the fleet occasionally participated in actions with larger Christian fleets.
Cosimo II died on 28 February 1621, and his son Ferdinando II succeeded
him to rule the Grand Duchy and head the Order up to 1670.51 During his long
reign, he increasingly employed the navy of the Order of St Stephen, using it to
defend the Tuscan coast and to escort diplomats and important people by sea.
Meanwhile, he reduced the number of cruises along the Muslim coast and
amphibious raids hardly ever occurred. At the beginning of the 1640s,
Ferdinando II was busy in the First War of Castro, also known as the War of the
Barberini, in which Tuscany was allied with the Republic of Venice, the Duchy
of Modena, and the Duchy of Parma against Pope Urban VIII.52 During this war,

50 Archivio Inghirami, Volterra, 58, file ‘Protocollo degli ordini e rescritti sovrani per il
servizio delle galere comandate dal Generale Iacopo Inghirami e documenti relativi a detto
servizio’, fol. n. nn.; also on the occasion of the victory of Bône the brochure Relazione del
viaggio e della presa della città di Bona in Barberia. Fatta per commessione del Sereniss.
Granduca di Toscana in nome del Serenissimo Prencipe suo primogenito dalle Galere della
Religione di Santo Stefano il di 16. di Settembre 1607 (Roma: Lepido Facii, 1607) (after Flor-
ence: Sermartelli, 1607; after Bologna: Benacci, 1607) was published. For further details
related to this enterprise, which was surely the greatest amphibious operation completed by
the Order of St Stephen, see Marco Gemignani, ‘La conquista di Bona’, Società di Storia
Militare, 2 (1994), 7–36.
51 Ferdinando II initially, since he was still a minor, was assisted by his paternal grand-
mother, Cristina of Lorena, and his mother, Maria Maddalena of Habsburg Diaz, Il
Granducato di Toscana – I Medici, 375–7.
52 The conflict began following the occupation by the Papal States’ troops of lands of the
Duke of Parma, Odoardo Farnese, that is Castro and Ronciglione. They were encumbered by
previously contracted large debts to the Pope and did not have the resources to pay those
debts. After this easy success, the Papal States’ soldiers tried also to conquer the whole of the

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The Navies of the Medici 183

in order to avoid clashes with other Christian navies, the ships of the Order of St
Stephen were limited to operations that loosely patrolled the shores of the Grand
Duchy and the Papal States.53
In 1645, the War of Crete, also called the War of Candia, began between
Venice and Turkey. The new Pope, Innocent X, asked and got from Ferdinando II
the dispatch of the galleys of St Stephen along with those of other Christian
navies to aid the Serenissima Republic. Despite the long wait in the waters
around Crete, the ships of the Order were never involved in serious fighting
against the Ottomans. In 1646, while the ships of the Order were in Leghorn,
news spread that a large French fleet was operating in the Tyrrhenian Sea, very
probably intended to attack Spanish possessions in the Italian peninsula and the
states allied with Madrid, including the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. The king of
Spain, Philip IV, who had succeeded his father Philip III in 1621, was engaged
alongside the Holy Roman Empire in the Thirty Years War. Informed of the
intentions of the French fleet, he decided that, in order to avoid strengthening
his harbours in Italy, to sell those bases to Ferdinando II.
At that point, however, Tuscany, was in a serious financial predicament,
because of expenses sustained during the First War of Castro. It was not able to
take advantage of the opportunity of acquiring these bases that would have
allowed it to control the Channel of Piombino. At the same time that Tuscany
refused the Spanish proposal, Ferdinando II also rejected an offer from Cardinal
Mazarin for Tuscany to ally itself with France. To avoid being involved in the
war, the Grand Duke proclaimed his neutrality and declared himself ready to
receive the French ships in his own ports.54
The French, after having repeatedly defeated the Spanish both in land battles
and in a naval clash, demanded and got from Ferdinando II a supply of provi-
sions. Otherwise, they would have carried out raids against Tuscany. This made
the financial situation of the Grand Duchy even more precarious, forcing
Ferdinando II to decrease expenses. When the treasury of the Order was not able
to assure their maintenance, he took the serious decision of reducing the number
of galleys of the Order of St Stephen. The negotiations to sell three galleys with
rowers started in the second half of 1646 and, initially, they were offered to
Naples and to the Republic of Genoa, two states strongly linked with Spain.55
Subsequently, Venice was also contacted. It needed to reinforce its own navy for
use against the Turks, who were occupying Crete, but, in the event, it proved

Duchy of Parma. The nearby states allied themselves against the Pope, saying that he was
obliged at the end of the war to return the contested lands to the Duke of Parma; see Ciro
Paoletti, ‘La prima guerra di Castro (1640–1644)’, Rivista marittima, 131 (1998), 4, 89–91.
53 Ibid., 92–100.
54 Letter from Pandolfo Ottavanti to Domenico Pandolfini from Leghorn on 2 September
1647, see ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2425, fol. n. n.; Jean Meyer and Martine Acerra,
Histoire de la marine française des origines à nos jours (Rennes: Ouest-France, 1994), 34.
55 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2163, fols 434r, 626r.

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184 Marco Gemignani

impossible to agree on a price with the Venetians.56 Ferdinando II decided to sell

the three vessels to the French, who also agreed in order to prevent their ending
up in the hands of their Spanish adversaries. To avoid creating diplomatic
embarrassment for the Grand Duke with Philip IV, the Medici officially sold the
ships to the principality of Monaco in the spring of 1647. Monaco then delivered
them to the French.57 Ferdinando II, with this sale, reduced the operational fleet
of the Order to only two galleys. They would primarily be used for protecting
the northern Tyrrhenian Sea from raids of Barbary privateers, to escort impor-
tant people and especially to transport commodities to and from Sicily.58
Those were in general terms the circumstances which characterised the
rebirth of the Florentine navy in the second half of the sixteenth century, its
expansion, the creation by the Medici of the Order of St Stephen endowed with
its own fleet, which in the 1570s gradually merged with the Grand Duchy’s
navy. In examining the nature and evolution of these two navies belonging to the
Medici, it becomes clear that they were built to give the Medici greater impor-
tance in the international context. Cosimo I was the first to understand how
necessary it was to have a fleet in the Mediterranean, which during the sixteenth
century became a basin where tensions between Christians and Muslims were
increasing. Cosimo I can justly be considered the father of the Medici navy of
the period.
The duties of the Florentine ships were manifold. They were to control the
northern Tyrrhenian Sea, to protect the Tuscan coasts and the merchant ships
headed for Leghorn because Cosimo I and his successors understood that to
allow the development of the state that they governed it was absolutely neces-
sary to favour commercial exchange. The ships were to attack Muslim warships
and merchantmen to show other Christian states the desire of the Florentine
court to oppose Islam. The Medici also considered their ships as ‘objects of
exchange’, to rent to Spain or to the Papal States to get, in addition to money to
cover part of the expenses of maintaining the fleet, their support in matters of
foreign policy.
Another purpose of the creation of the Order of St Stephen was to create a
link between the Medici and the most important families of the Tuscan nobility
and also of other Christian states, subsequently to improve relations with the
papacy and to have an autonomous fleet separate and different from that of the
government.
The huge expenses of maintaining these two navies were initially almost
entirely paid through government financing. After some years, when the Floren-
tine court realised that the Papal States and Spain did not wish to rent the Grand

56 The Venetians, rather than buying the galleys, decided to acquire just the rowers, ibid., cc.
512r, 518r, 522r; Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Senato, Dispacci degli ambasciatori e
residenti, Firenze, 57, fols 39r–41r, 83r–86v, 91r–93v.
57 ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2167, fol. 343.
58 ASP, Ordine dei Cavalieri di S. Stefano, 3041, passim; 3042, passim; 3043, passim; 3044,
passim.

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The Navies of the Medici 185

Duchy’s or the Order’s ships, and what is more that the Spanish often did not
pay the amount due, it was forced to suppress the government navy and to
combine its ships with those of the Order of St Stephen. In this way the Medici
could justify their refusal to rent ships to the Spanish, saying that these galleys
did not belong to the state that they governed but to an autonomous chivalric
Order that had no dependent relationship with Spain. Ships of the Order of St
Stephen, especially under the leadership of Ferdinando I and Cosimo II, were
then employed in amphibious operations and used initially only to provide pris-
oners to employ on board the galleys of the Order. Subsequently, the ships were
also used to increase the prestige of the Medici family because the grand dukes
sometimes entrusted the direction of their operation to relatives. Only in one
case, the attack against Famagusta in 1607, was the fleet of St Stephen – on that
occasion supported by some rented sailing ships – employed for conquering a
territory. The plan was to use that town as a base in the eastern Mediterranean to
promote the Medici dynasty from the rank of grand dukes to that of kings, but
the enterprise failed. Later, in the 1630s and 1640s, the fleet of the Order of St
Stephen was transformed from a primarily offensive posture to a defensive one
and given the task of representation. To reduce the costs of the maintenance of
the fleet, Ferdinando II was even forced to sell three of its galleys.
Strategic factors and naval technology also evolved in the Mediterranean in
the roughly one hundred years from the launching in 1547 of the first Medici
galley of the period to the mid-seventeenth century. A squadron of five or six
galleys could and did have some importance at the time of Cosimo I and his im-
mediate successors. By around 1650 a small fleet of this kind was not enough
either to carry out amphibious operations against the Islamic coasts, now better
protected by fortresses and patrols of cavalry, or to effect attacks against the
maritime commercial trade routes, now often served by large sailing ships
equipped with large amounts of artillery. Spain no longer required the ships
since by the mid-seventeenth century it had a large permanent fleet of its own.
Only in the 1680s did the navy of the Order of St Stephen, engaged alongside
other Christian fleets in the War of Morea, increase its forces to four galleys and
other small ships. Its weight, both from a military point of view and from a
diplomatic one, would have been small in comparison to the Medici navy at the
time of Cosimo I,59 but he had appreciated, as much as or more than most of his
contemporaries, the changing character of naval warfare in the sixteenth
century.

59 ASF, Miscellanea Medicea, 672, file ‘Per le Galere’.

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