56. News about the victory in Lepanto

This letter was sent to Simón Ruiz by Cristóbal Briceño de Valderrábano, commander of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem (aka Knights Hospitaller), at the time an official royal resident in Madrid. The letter, dated 31 October 1571, included an attachment with a copy of the news about the victory in Lepanto on the seventh of the month which had arrived in El Escorial just two days before. In just 11 lines the document meticulously condenses information on the result of the encounter between the two navies, with the list of ships that had been sunk, the number of casualties, prisoners taken, galleys captured and Christian captives freed from the oars. Briceño concludes that only five Ottoman galleys escaped to Messina under the command of the viceroy of Algiers, Uluch Ali (see more in the caption to doc. 57).

(Fernando Ramos González)