News on the Turkish navy

News on an encounter with the Turkish navy in Calabria.

This news is included in a letter sent from Madrid on 25 August 1576 by Cristóbal Briceño de Valderrábano to Simón Ruiz in Medina del Campo. In it he reports on the unsuccessful attack on 20 July by 100 Turkish ships on the territories of the Prince of Bisignano in Calabria. The attack was carried out under the command of the admiral of the Ottoman fleet, the corsair Uluch Ali, a renegade Calabrian convert to Islam, whom Cervantes calls Uchali in Don Quixote (part 1, chapters XXXIX and XL). The period between 1572 and 1576 was characterised by a series of major acts of retaliation by the Sublime Porte after its defeat in Lepanto. On average, it would subsequently make one expedition each year against outposts on the Christian shores of the Mediterranean.