Page 181 - sfogliabile 49

Infidel friends: Charles V, Mulay Hassan and the theatre of majesty 447

Fig. 2. J.C. Vermeyen, The Sack of Tunis and The Re-embarkation of the Army at La
Goleta (det.), Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (1545)

In contrast with those episodes, the conquest of Tunis in 1535 was
rhetorically constructed as one of the last Christian crusades,
rightfully commanded by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. For
Duchhardt, it constituted «the first modern political event to be ‘sold’
in a great publicist and propagandistic style» . Such propaganda
2
simultaneously legitimised the campaign and discredited Francis I of
France, the ally of Sultan Süleyman and the Ottoman admiral
Barbarossa. This bombastic vision has been repeated in later
literature and popular tradition, as a manifestation of the Christian-
European triumph over inferior infidels and of the timeless and

2 H. Duchhardt, Das Tunisunternehmen Karls V. 1535, «Mitteilungen des
österreichischen Staatsarchivs», 37 (1984), p. 66; S. Deswarte-Rose, L’expedition de
Tunis (1535): Images, Interprétations, Répercussions Culturelles, in B. Bennassar, R.
Sauzet (eds.), Chrétiens et Musulmans à la Renaissance, Honoré Champion, Paris, 1988,
pp. 73-131; J. D. Tracy, Emperor Charles V's crusades against Tunis and Algiers:
appearance and reality, Associates of the James Ford Bell Library, Minneapolis, 2001.

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