Doria, ANDREA

Doria, ANDREA, a Genoese of noble family, and admiral of the Emperor Charles V., was born of comparatively poor parents, in November 1466 or 1468, at Oneglia, where his ancestors had been princes for centuries. The Dories had long held a foremost place in the republic; they had again and again led the fleets of Genoa to victory over Pisa and Venice. Andrea took to the profession of arms at the age of nineteen, when he entered the pope's guards, in which his uncle held a command. On the accession of Alexander VI. he took service with the Duke of Urbino (whose son he subsequently saved from the Borgia), and then with Alfonso of Naples, on whose departure Doria went to the Holy Land till the troubles should be over. On his return he joined the Prince of Sinigaglia, in resisting the Spaniards, who were then triumphing over Italy. Doria dreaded the extinction of the Genoese state before the overmastering tide of imperial conquest, and devoted himself with all his energy to restoring the ancient naval renown of his countrymen. He returned to Genoa in 1503, his military exploits procuring him immediate employment; in 1513 he was appointed commander of the galleys of the republic, and soon his name was a terror to the Turkish corsairs, who were now beginning their ravages in the Mediterranean. In 1519, with six ships, he captured thirteen of their galleets off Pianosa; but his connection with Genoa was suddenly broken by a revolution, which in 1522 restored the faction of the Adorni, who favoured the imperial interest. Doria transferred his allegiance to Francis I., as much to save his country from Charles V. as to serve his personal ambition. The French fleet rode the seas supreme so long as Doria commanded, and Charles V. sustained several defeats. Doria blockaded Genoa, turned out the Adorni, and proclaimed the independence of the republic, where he was hailed as the liberator of his country. Once more he changed sides in 1529, and fearing the predominance of Francis, or thinking himself slighted, went over with his twenty private galleys to Charles V. The imperial fleet soon felt his influence, and now it was not France but the empire that held the seas. Genoa welcomed him as its father: he peacefully entered the city, and, refusing the title of sovereign, established a form of popular government, with a strong aristocratic element, which lasted to the end of the republic. The emperor gave him the order of the Golden Fleece and the principship of Melfi. Doria's career now became one long duel with his great rival the corsair Khair-ed-din Barbarossa (q.v.). In 1531 the Genoese admiral descended upon the latter's stronghold at Shershel on the Barbary coast, but lost many of his men without holding the place. In 1532 he sailed with a great fleet to the Ionian waters, and took Coron and Patras from the Turks; one of his most brilliant feats was the revictualling of Coron in the teeth of the Turkish navy in the following spring. (See Jurien de la Gravière, Doria et Barberousse.) In 1535 he accompanied Charles V. to Tunis, where his galleys took a prominent part in the bombardment of the Goletta forts and the destruction of Barbarossa's fleet, but failed to capture the corsair himself. Barbarossa now commanded, as Kapudan Pasha, the navy of Turkey; collecting a fleet of 150 sail, he ravaged the islands about Greece, which chiefly belonged to Venice; and in 1538, meeting the combined fleets of the emperor, the pope, and the Venetians, off Prevesa, he offered battle. Doria's conduct in manoeuvring out of range, not without the loss of his heavier sailing-vessels, was severely criticised, and Barbarossa came off decisively with the honours of war. Thenceforward, for a quarter of a century, the Turks were masters of the Mediterranean, and the power of Venice was crippled. Doria's expedition to Algiers with Charles V. in 1541 was a disastrous failure, and in 1560 he suffered a terrible reverse at Jerba, near Tunis, at the hands of one of Barbarossa's pupils, the renegade Ochiali (Uluj Ali). On the whole, Doria was outmatched by the corsairs. His later years had been disturbed by the conspiracy of Fieschi, and stained by the savage revenge he took upon those who were associated with the murder of his favourite nephew Gianettino. Prince Andrea Doria died at Genoa without issue, 25th November 1560, in his ninety-third or ninety-fifth year. He was the idol of his people, and the honoured counsellor of Charles V. and his son Philip, a born adventurer, personally very valorous, a man of great heart, a great admiral, but a greater soldier. See Richer, Vie d'Andrea Doria; Sandore; Capelloni; Brantôme; Celesia, Conspiracy of Fieschi.