Page 99 - 1

Contro ogni previsione: uno scontro navale nel Mediterraneo moderno... 549

8. Conclusion

The naval engagement off the coast of Kassandra later came to be
regarded as a heroic epic by the English . Ottoman perception, on the
96
other hand, treated it as an unfortunate accident. The fact that the
Ottoman administration kept Cafer Pasha in office as the grand admi-
ral is enough to extrapolate that the Ottomans did not perceive any
failure in that respect. Or at least, it was regarded as one of many
venial failures that were eclipsed by palace favouritism.
The partial burning of the grand admiral’s bastarda during the fight
was the result of a tactical mistake he almost consciously walked into.
And this was one of the errors that drew the line of maritime technical
distinction between the Ottoman naval officers who were seafarers by
trade and those who were political appointees of the Ottoman palace.
97
Filling the post of the grand admiral through palace favouritism was,
at times, bound to invite such hazards. And it was probably therefore
that the closing section of Katip Celebi’s work (the forty admonitions)
exhorts the grand admirals to «consult with the corsairs (i.e., seafarers
by trade) about issues relating to the sea and naval combat if they
[were] not corsairs themselves» .
98
Apart from the actual moment of engagement, the preparation for
the 1633 campaign is also important concerning the Morisco connec-
tion it offered. Antonio de Ávalos’ involvement in the imperial shipyard
as a gunner and petardier confirms the conviction that the early mod-
ern Ottomans were quick to «adopt the common military technology
of the Mediterranean» , turning the great sea into a pool for technical
99
diffusion for both the western and eastern shores. And in the seven-
teenth century, when the Ottoman rapid overland expansion into Eu-
rope was considerably halted in comparison to the previous centuries,
figures like de Ávalos became important in continuing the acquisition

96 G. Calafat, For a “Livorno-on-Thames”: the Tuscan model in the writings of
Henry Robinson (1604-1673?), «The Seventeenth Century», 37, no. 4 (2022), pp.
535-564.
97 E. Türkçelik, Meritocracy, Factionalism and Ottoman Grand Admirals in the
Context of Mediterranean Politics, in Ruben Gonzalez Cuerva and Alexander Koller
eds, A Europe of Courts, a Europe of Factions, Political Groups at Early Modern Cen-
tres of Power (1550-1700), Brill, 2017.
98 I.C. Hergül, Development of the Ottoman Maritime Technology in the Sixteenth
and Seventeenth Centuries, Middle East Technical University, Unpublished MA
Thesis, 2019, p. 43. Hergül’s quotation corresponds to Kâtip Çelebi, Tuhfetü’l-
Kibâr, pp. 237-238.
99 E. Gugliuzzo, Sea Power and the Ottomans in the Early Modern Mediterranean
World, in G. Theotokis and A. Yıldız (edited by), A Military History of the Mediterra-
nean Sea. Aspects of War, Diplomacy, and Military Elites, Brill, Leiden-Boston,
2018, pp. 79-91, on p. 83; Hergül, Development, p. 64.

Mediterranea - ricerche storiche - Anno XX - Dicembre 2023
ISSN 1824-3010 (stampa) ISSN 1828-230X (online)