La politica navale della Spagna della Spagna nel fronte mediterraneo (1635-1678)

During the XVI Century the warlike vocation of the reign of Castiglia, shaped during the centuries of the Reconquista, and the wars conducted by the Absburgs towards many frontlines, gave a great contribution for the creation of a strong burocratic structure which gave the opportunity made possible to Spain to give itself a modern country dimension. Particularly, a great impulse for the empowerment of the administrative structure came from the development and the complex management of the military fleet, committed in the Mediterranean area in many naval activities against Turks. In the first half of the XVII century Spain was forced to display all its immense military potential during the long conflict that interested the countries of half Europe between 1618 and 1648: the Thirty Years War. To sustain the expensive politics of intervention, all the reigns of the Crown were called to give their contribution. Among them, also Sardinia, in spite of her poverty and marginality, joined with conviction the politic project of the Unión de Armas. The opening of the new front against France, in 1635, risked to bring the monarchy into collapse: insurrections and revolts exploded in Portugal, Catalogna and in the Reigns of Naples and Sicily; in the Atlantic sea the Armada del Mar Océano had terrible defeats by nordish fleets; while in the mainland the tercios lost their primacy of unbeatability. Only the Mediterranean fleets of galleys, even if strongly reduced, compared to the previous century, and technologically overtaken by the sail ships, even if did not succeed in dominating could at least contrast the enemy and preserve in some kind the precious vital space of a power already in decline.