Barbarossa Defeats the Holy League at Preveza

On September 28, 1538, an Ottoman fleet led by Kapudan Pasha Hayreddin Barbarossa engaged a Holy League armada under the Genoese admiral Andrea Doria near Preveza in northwestern Greece. Organised by Pope Paul III earlier that year, the League united Habsburg Spain, the Republic of Genoa, the Republic of Venice, the Papal States, and the Knights of Malta against Ottoman maritime expansion. The campaign followed Barbarossa's seizure of several Venetian-held Aegean islands and his failed siege of Corfu in 1537. Despite assembling a formidable combined fleet with a significant advantage in total vessels, tonnage, and artillery, the Christian coalition fractured under competing strategic agendas and long-standing rivalries.

Barbarossa stationed his fleet inside the Gulf of Arta, shielded by the fortress of Preveza and land forces on the coast. When Doria brought the allied armada before the entrance, the narrow channel prevented a direct assault by his heavy sailing ships, whose movements were further restricted by difficult winds. A plan for an infantry landing, with Marco Grimani at the head of the papal troops, to set up artillery overlooking the gulf entrance was shelved, and Doria declined to commit his landing troops against the entrenched Ottoman shore batteries. Seeking to lure Barbarossa out into open water, Doria eventually ordered the Holy League to withdraw southward on September 27.