Andrea Doria, Prince of Melfi (Italian: [anˈdrɛːa ˈdɔːrja]; Ligurian: Drîa Döia [ˈdɾiːa ˈdɔːja]; 30 November 1466 – 25 November 1560) was an Italian statesman, condottiero and admiral, who played a key role in the Republic of Genoa during his lifetime.
Doria was considered the foremost naval leader in Europe at his time. From 1528, he served as Holy Roman Emperor Charles V's grand admiral in the Mediterranean, as well as his main shipbuilder along with Álvaro de Bazán the Elder, while also acting as a privateer with the ships he owned in order to increase his own wealth. Although he had mixed success against the power of the Ottoman admirals, his fleet helped secure the imperial naval lines between Spain and Italy. He also played a role in the development of amphibious warfare by the Spanish and Italian navies.
As a citizen of Genoa, Doria used his relationship with Charles V to both protect the republic's independence and exercise a predominant influence in its councils. He refused official charges, accepting only the title of Father of the Fatherland, and instead ruled the republic as an economic and military player. Under his reforms, the Doge's office was reduced to two years instead of being elected for life, while plebeians were declared ineligible, and the appointment was entrusted to the members of the great and the little councils. His constitutional reforms would last until the end of the republic in 1797.
His posterior historical reputation became influenced by the lens of his Venetian rivals, which accused him of unstrategic and duplicitous conduct in battle. Even then, several ships in the next centuries were named in his honour, the most famous being the Italian passenger liner SS Andrea Doria, launched in 1951, which sank following a collision in 1956.
Doria was born at Oneglia from the ancient Genoese family the Doria di Oneglia, a branch of the noble Doria family, who played a major role in the history of the Republic since the 12th century. His parents were related: Ceva Doria, co-lord of Oneglia, and Caracosa Doria, of the Doria di Dolceacqua branch. Orphaned at an early age, he became a soldier of fortune, serving first in the papal guard and then under various Italian princes. He soon gained enough renown for Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, the premier general of the age, to tempt him to join him.
In 1503, he fought in Corsica in the service of the Genoese Navy, at that time under French vassalage. However, after the Battle of Ravenna of 1512, he turned against the Francophile government of Genoa represented by Gian Fregoso. At age 46, despite having no previous naval experience, Doria was appointed admiral and took it upon himself to reorganize the existing Genoese fleet. A French invasion of Genoa forced him and his fleet to escape to La Spezia. With the French defeat in Novara the following year, Doria returned and conquered the local French garrison in Briglia, expelled them from Genoa and helped Ottaviano Fregoso to become the new Doge.
Doria also scoured the Mediterranean in command of the Genoese fleet, waging war on the Turks and the Barbary pirates. When a fleet led by the brothers Aruj and Hayreddin Barbarossa, coming from a failed siege of the Spanish port of Béjaïa, captured a Genoese ship in 1512, Doria attacked the brothers' base in La Goulette with twelve galleys, sacking the place and destroying the ships in port. In the meanwhile, however, Genoa was recaptured by the French, as a new change of tide in Marignano forced Fregoso to pledge Genoa to King Francis I of France in 1515. Doria focused in his actions against Muslims, defeated another Turkish fleet led by Caid Ali or Cadolin at Pianosa in 1519, capturing his ships for his own fleet.
In 1522, during the Italian War between France and the empire of Charles V, King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, Genoa was conquered and sacked by imperial troops under the command of Prospero Colonna and Fernando d'Ávalos, forcing Doria to escape with the fleet again. Taking refuge in Monaco, he helped the French defend Marseille in 1524, but the war came to an abrupt end when Francis I was captured by the imperial army in Pavia in 1525. Doria prepared a plan to rescue him, but Francis ordered him to refrain.
Doria then clashed with Francis' regent, Anne de Montmorency, and abandoned French service, forming a naval mercenary fleet. In June 1526, at the head of thirteen ships, he crossed paths again with Hayreddin Barbarossa in the coast of Civitavecchia, defeating the Turkish and capturing fifteen of his sixteen vessels, with Barbarossa managing to escape in his flagship alone.
However, Doria ended up siding with France again when Pope Clement VII formed the League of Cognac to oppose Charles V, for which Doria was hired to command their armada while Giovanni delle Bande Nere did the same in their land army. Doria defeated a bigger Spanish fleet in Corsica and planned to conquer Genoa, still under imperial rule, but it was never carried on. With Giovanni's death in action and the sack of Rome by mutinied imperial troops, the situation worsened for the League of Cognac, who depended on Doria more than ever.
In 1528, the League's armada, under the command of Doria and his nephew, Filippino Doria, crushed a Spanish fleet on 28 April 1528 at the Battle of Capo d'Orso, capturing the enemy commanders Alfonso d'Avalos and Ascanio Colonna. However, Andrea became dissatisfied with his treatment at the hands of Francis, who was mean about payment and replaced Doria for the French admiral Antoine de La Rochefoucauld. Meanwhile, d'Avalos capitalized on the chance to try to convince Doria to switch sides, with Doria refusing to hand d'Avalos and Colonna to Francis as the king asked. Charles V and Doria exchanged letters, and although Francis found out about it and attempted to compensate the Genoese, the latter deserted the French for the emperor on June 1528.
Without Doria's fleet, the League collapsed. The Genoese lifted the siege of Naples, chasing La Rochefoucauld to Provence and capturing four of his ships. In September, Doria and his forces drove the French out of Genoa and were triumphantly received by the city. Charles appointed him grand admiral, prince of Melfi and Marquis of Tursi in reward for his services. He found Doria an invaluable ally in the wars with Francis I, and through him extended his domination over the whole of Italy. He continued to serve the emperor in various wars, in which he was generally successful and always active.
Doria reformed the constitution in an aristocratic sense, eliminating the factions that had plagued the republic in the past centuries, and constituted a new oligarchic form of government composed of the city's principal aristocratic families, creating 28 Alberghi or "clans". The 28 Alberghi that formed this new ruling class included the Cybo, Doria, Fieschi, Giustiniani, Grimaldi, Imperiale, Pallavicino, and Spinola families.
He refused offers to take the lordship of Genoa and even the dogeship, but accepted the position of perpetual censor and the title of Father of the Fatherland (Liberator et Pater Patriae). He was still the de facto ruler of Genoa due to his economic and military power, and exercised undisputed influence in the councils of the republic until his death.
The title "censor" in this context was modelled on its meaning in the Roman Republic, i.e., a highly respected senior public official (see Roman censor), rather than its modern meaning having to do with censorship. He was given two palaces and many privileges. He established himself in his newly renovated villa in Fassolo, a Renaissance masterpiece known as Villa del Principe, in an area just outside the now demolished Porta di San Tomaso, where he resided until his death.
To protect the restored republic from future foreign attacks, Doria sponsored the construction of a new city wall, which was built in the third decade of the sixteenth century, on a design by the military engineer Giovanni Maria Olgiati. This new city wall actually followed the path of the previous 14th-century walls but replaced the old square-plan towers and walls with new curtain-shaped curtain walls and triangular bastions.