Andrea Doria

Andrea Doria was a Genoese admiral and statesman who changed sides in the Habsburg-Valois wars and secured his city's independence for two and a half centuries. Born at Oneglia in 1466 into a noble family, he was orphaned early and served as a soldier of fortune for the papacy and various Italian princes before taking to the sea in his forties. He commanded galleys against the Barbary corsairs and built a reputation as the best galley commander in the Mediterranean, operating with his own squadron that he hired out — a condottiere at sea. He served Francis I of France from 1522, and his fleet was central to French operations in Italy. In 1528, dissatisfied with French payment and with French designs on Savona, which competed with Genoa, he transferred his contract and his ships to Charles V. The consequences were immediate and large. The French lost naval superiority in the western Mediterranean, their army besieging Naples collapsed, and Genoa passed permanently into the imperial orbit. He declined to make himself lord of Genoa. Instead he gave it a new constitution in 1528, establishing an aristocratic republic under a doge elected for two years, which lasted until Napoleon. He was named censor and effectively directed the city for three decades. He commanded imperial fleets against the Ottomans, taking Coron and Patras in 1532, and was defeated by Barbarossa at Preveza in 1538, an action in which he was criticised for holding back his own galleys. He fought at Tunis in 1535 and at the failed Algiers expedition of 1541. He survived the Fieschi conspiracy of 1547 and died in 1560, aged ninety-three.

• Lived: 1466 CE – 1560 CE
• Nationality: Genoese
• Roles: admiral, statesman