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464 Rubén González Cuerva

founded doubts, the performance of the act of vassalage which followed
European traditions had been a success. With this, the imperial army
was ready to depart.

Epilogue

As the Emperor suspected, his Tunisian client was incapable of
consolidating his power and unable to win back the old Hafsid
kingdom. In 1543, after eight years of unstable rule, Mulay Hassan
travelled to Italy to meet his old friend (as he called him in his letters)
Charles V again, and to beg him to give further support. In his absence
from Tunis, his son, the prince Mulay Ahmed, usurped the throne and
Mulay Hassan spent his last years of life in a venturesome exile.
There are four scenes in his last period that deserve our attention. His
first stop after leaving Tunis in the spring of 1543 was Palermo, where he
was honourably received by local gentlemen and lodged in the Palazzo di
Aiutamicristo. Charles V had stayed in this same palace in 1535 after the
conquest of Tunis, thus showing a parallel in kingship and dignity . After
65
Palermo he sailed to Naples, where the viceroy Pedro de Toledo treated
him with royal magnificence. Don Pedro went beyond the city walls to
meet him, but made clear the inferior nature of an infidel king by greeting
him without dismounting his horse as he would have done for a Christian
monarch, while Mulay Hassan made a reverence in reply. Among the
many activities offered by both the viceroy and the king in the Neapolitan
summer of 1543, the most outstanding one was the aforementioned game
of canes in which, for the first time in Europe, the Moorish riders could
demonstrate their skills and compete with Spanish and Italian knights .
66
After this, Mulay Hassan became an attraction in Christian European
courts, playing the role of a friend of Christians, a disgraced but
courteous and refined Muslim king. In 1547-1548, following an
unsuccessful attempt to recover his kingdom that led to him being
blinded by his son Mulay Ahmed, and fleeing again into exile, Mulay
Hassan initiated a more extended European tour, escorted by a small
retinue made up of five Tunisians and the interpreter Hernando de

65 T. Fazello, Le due deche del’Historia di Sicilia, appresso Domenico, et Gio. Battista
Guerra, Venetia, 1574, p. 915.
66 G.A. Summonte, Dell’historia della citta, e regno di Napoli, a spese di Antonio
Bulifon, Napoli, 1675, vol. IV, p. 155; G. De Spenis, Breve cronica cit., pp. 518-524; B.
Capasso, Muleassen re di Tunisi nel Palazzo Colonna (1543), «Napoli Nobilissima», 3:7
(1894), pp. 100-103; III/8, pp. 117-120; G. Varriale, Dal simposio alla prigionia: gli ultimi
hafsidi e il meridione italiano, «Orientalia Parthenopea», 11 (2011), pp. 16-17.

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