Page 215 - sfogliabile 49

A baroque vision of the conquest of Tunis in 1535 481

imperial conquest of the fortress of La Goleta, which had been stoutly
defended by the Jewish corsair Sinan, and with Barbarossa’s flight
towards the city of Tunis .
37
The third act essentially deals with two aspects: on the one hand,
it describes the Emperor’s victory in Tunis; and on the other hand, it
offers and a more in-depth account of his moral supremacy which is
shown to stem in part from his being a legitimate sovereign. It is the
latter issue with which the act commences: a face-to-face encounter
between the Emperor and Mulay in which Charles V asserts that
«Kings are Deities» and that he considers Mulay a brother. Thus, it is
implied that the similarity and bond between kings is above and
beyond differences between a Christian and a Muslim. However, the
Emperor reproaches Mulay for the violence he had inflicted on his own
family when he seized power in Tunis before Barbarossa’s invasion: he
had poisoned his father and murdered his brothers . The play uses
38
this to demonstrate the superiority of Western, Christian monarchies
over their Muslim equivalents, in part because of the principle of
primogeniture . It also serves to condemn Muslims as practitioners
39
of barbaric acts and for abiding to customs that are the opposite of the
rationality and fairness which are attributed to Christian monarchies.
To that must be added an element of the utmost importance,
especially because of its novelty: Charles V’s recrimination of Mulay
for his arbitrary and unfair rule over Tunis in the past, which also
serves to enhance the Emperor’s moral and political superiority:

Vos sois cruel, ambicioso,
desconfiado, inconstante
y vengativo; no son
de Rey estas propiedades
no todo lo venga un Rey;
arte de reinar es arte
de disimular injurias,

37 A detail that further illustrates the historical accuracy of the play in general.
38 Many sources describe Mulay Hassan’s cruelty both before and after the Emperor
helped him to recover the throne: G. de Illescas, Jornada de Carlos V á Túnez,
Rivadeneyra, Madrid, 1852, pp. xxi, 452. Some even assert that the hostility which some
of the Tunisians felt towards him helped Barbarossa to conquer Tunis, P. de Sandoval,
Historia cit., vol. II, pp. 472, 473, 474, 524. López de Gómara claimed that when
Barbarossa was at the court in Constantinople, he said that Mulay’s cruelty had
facilitated the conquest of Tunis by the Ottoman-corsair forces: F. López de Gómara,
Guerras de mar del Emperador Carlos V, Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de
los Centenarios de Felipe II y Carlos V, Madrid, 2000, p. 154. Other sources point to
Mulay Hassan’s tyranny as the cause of his own son’s rebellion against him, A. de
Ceballos-Escalera, Guerra y nobleza cit., p. 136.
39 «…although it doesn’t apply among the moors / (in Christian kingdoms) there
reigns a just law / whereby the first son to be born is the heir…» (p. 25).

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