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Juan De Rena and the financing of the Tunis campaign 415

emperor’s quadrireme. Because expenses for the galleys fitted out at Barcelona
came to 118.226 ducats, it seems reasonable to double this figure. Thus total
cost for the Tunis campaign would come to 1.076.652 ducats 47 .

Those are the best current estimates available, but it is worth
emphasising that, as has been amply demonstrated here, we have only
fragmentary information, and even that is for a relatively small part of
the fleet. Of the twenty galleys which were fitted out in Barcelona, for
example, we only have data relating to five of them, the ones that Juan
de Rena was responsible for, as well as the four horse transports that
he also organised. And even for these we cannot give a clear indication
of the total cost.
The Tunis campaign of 1535 was one of the greatest military
challenges that Charles V’s lands faced during his reign. It was an
enterprise of extraordinary complexity and it is unfortunate that it
should be so problematic to estimate the overall cost with any degree
of precision given the paucity of information. The timely arrival in
Seville of a large quantity of specie and money from Peru solved the
most pressing financial problems, enabling the emperor to pay for the
contingents required to initiate this campaign. But it did nothing to
solve the structural problems of the Monarchy which the campaign
laid bare. To organise fleets of this magnitude it was necessary to
count on a permanent, complex infrastructure that could meet the
multiple needs of such a campaign. As they found out to their cost, for
example, it was not possible to acquire sufficient artillery at short
notice and in the quantity needed, as the hard-pressed officials in
Malaga explained at the end of February 1535 with the departure date
fast approaching:

we are making all haste to cast the artillery for the galleys, but such a large
quantity cannot be made in so short a time, particularly as the gun foundries
had not been very active. As for the many items which the captain of the
artillery set out in his memorandum, we are endeavouring to provide them all,
but despite our great diligence it seems to me that we would need three
months to do this. We are doing everything possible to meet his requirements,
but to ensure that as little as possible is left undone, if it proves impossible to
do everything, it would be as well if the captain were to come here and take
charge of the operation 48 .

47 J.D. Tracy, Emperor Charles V, Impresario of War. Campaign strategy, international
finance, and domestic politics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002, p. 155.
48 Ags, E, 30, s. f., Málaga, 25 February 1535.

Mediterranea - ricerche storiche - Anno XVII - Agosto 2020
ISSN 1824-3010 (stampa) ISSN 1828-230X (online)