Jacopo Inghirami

Jacopo Inghirami
Jacopo Inghirami (18th-century engraving from an earlier portrait)
BornJuly 1565
Volterra, Tuscany
Died3 January 1624 (age 58)
Volterra, Tuscany
Military career
AllegianceGrand Duchy of Tuscany
BranchNavy
Service years1581-1624
RankAdmiral
CommandsKnights of Saint Stephen
Governor of Livorno
In office
1617–1621

Jacopo (or Iacopo) Inghirami (July 1565 – 3 January 1624) was admiral of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and marquis of Montevitozzo.[1]

Career

Born to an influential family in Volterra in July 1565,[2] Jacopo was orphaned as a teenager.[3] He was educated at the Palazzo della Carovana in Pisa[2] and in 1581 joined the navy of the Knights of Saint Stephen - a militia created by Cosimo I de' Medici to fight the Ottoman Empire.[3] Inghirami served on the order's galleys in the Mediterranean for some years before taking his first command. In the 1590s, he left the navy temporarily to fight for Philippe Emmanuel de Lorraine of the Catholic League during the religious wars in France.[3] Upon his return to Tuscany, Inghirami rejoined the Tuscan navy, undertaking both military engagements and diplomatic missions for the Grand Duchy (such as that in 1600 when commanding the galley transporting the Grand Duke's daughter, Marie de' Medici, to marry Henry IV of France).[2]

In 1602, during the "Long War", he led a successful operation which resulted in a large number of Ottoman prisoners and the liberation of Christian captives.[4] Following this action, he was appointed admiral of the fleet in 1603 by Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany.[5]

For the coming decade, the Tuscan fleet (under Inghirami) engaged Ottoman shipping and Berber pirates in the Mediterranean. In 1603, commanding five Tuscan galleys, he defeated an Algerian-Tunisian flotilla commanded by corsair Amurat Reis near Sardinia, routing them with his superior artillery and capturing the Tunisian flagship.[6]

Inghirami's successes also reached Turkish waters. He sacked the fortresses of Preveza in 1605 and Finike in 1606, and after a failure in invading Cyprus in 1607, they successfully took Bona (Annaba) in modern-day Algeria.[7][5] He followed by raiding in Anatolia in 1612 and 1613.[7]

As admiral, Inghirami also liaised with the Catholic allies of the Grand Duchy in the Mediterranean (including representatives of the fleets of France and later Spain), and also with the Medici family's North African allies (including emir Fakhr-al-Din II, whom Inghirmani carried to Messina, where he was received by Viceroy Pedro Téllez-Girón, Duke of Osuna, during the emir's exile from Lebanon).[8][9]

In May 1616, Inghirami sailed with five galleys until Negroponte, where he captured the flagship of Mytilene and a ship carrying rich tribute from Alexandria.[10] Upon his return, he defeated Amurat Reis and his six Algerian galleys again near Castelrosso.[11][7] The same year, Cosimo II de' Medici awarded Inghirami the title of Marquis, and later appointed him Governor of Livorno.[5] He remained governor until 1621 when he assumed command of the fleet again. He held this position until his death in Volterra on 3 January 1624. He is buried in the Chapel of St. Paul in the Cathedral of Volterra (the chapel had been commissioned by Inghirami himself in 1605).[3][4]

Patronage

When not at sea, Inghirami maintained the family seat at the Palazzo Inghirami in Volterra, the façade of which was designed by Gherardo Silvani.[12] Inghirami also commissioned a villa by Silvani on Inghirami lands outside Volterra at Ulignano.

One of Inghirami's larger commissions was the Inghirami family chapel in the Duomo (cathedral) of Volterra.[13] This chapel (dedicated to Saint Paul) was designed by Alessandro Pieroni and includes frescos by Giovanni da San Giovanni.[14]

Giambologna and Pietro Tacca's equestrian statue of Ferdinando I de' Medici (in the Piazza Santissima Annunziata in Florence) is made from the recast bronze of cannon captured by Inghirami's galleons.[5][15]

References

Notes

  1. ^ "Person Detail - Inghirami, Iacopo". Medici Archive Project. Archived from the original on 30 September 2011. Retrieved 7 July 2011.
  2. ^ a b c "Personaggi storici famosi - Jacopo Inghirami v" (in Italian). Associazione culturale "La Livornina". Archived from the original on 6 January 2011. Retrieved 7 July 2011.
  3. ^ a b c d Gemignani 2004.
  4. ^ a b "La Famiglia Inghirami di Volterra - Personaggi" (in Italian). Website of La Famiglia Inghirami di Volterra. Archived from the original on 31 October 2011. Retrieved 7 July 2011.
  5. ^ a b c d "IACOPO INGHIRAMI of Volterra (Events timeline)" (in Italian). Pirates of the Mediterranean. Archived from the original on 26 March 2012. Retrieved 7 July 2011.
  6. ^ Battistini 1912, p. 18.
  7. ^ a b c Bernardini 1989.
  8. ^ "Document Detail - Correspondence from Inghirami Cosimo II de' Medici (July 1615)". Medici Archive Project. Archived from the original on 30 September 2011. Retrieved 15 July 2011.
  9. ^ Mariti, Giovanni (1787). Istoria di Faccardino, Grand-Emir dei Drusi (in Italian). Masi. pp. 97, 156. Retrieved 15 July 2011. inghirami.
  10. ^ Jacopo Riguccio Galluzzi, Istoria del Granducato di Toscana sotto il governo della Casa Medici, 1781, p. 135
  11. ^ Battistini 1912, p. 31.
  12. ^ "History of Volterra – The Renaissance". Website of Comune of Volterra. Retrieved July 15, 2011.
  13. ^ "Duomo di Volterra". Website of Comune of Volterra. Archived from the original on May 24, 2018. Retrieved July 15, 2011.
  14. ^ Drake Rowland, Ingrid (2004). The Scarith of Scornello: a tale of Renaissance forgery. University of Chicago Press. pp. 27, 28. ISBN 0-226-73037-9.
  15. ^ "Equestrian statue of Ferdinando I". Website of Comune of Florence. Archived from the original on 27 March 2012. Retrieved July 15, 2011.

Sources

  • Gemignani, Marco (2004). "INGHIRAMI, Iacopo". Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (in Italian). Vol. 62: Iacobiti–Labriola. Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. ISBN 978-88-12-00032-6.
  • Battistini, Mario (1912), L'ammiraglio Iacopo Inghirami e le imprese dei Cavalieri dell'Ordine di S. Stefano contro i Turchi nel 1600, Confortini
  • Bernardini, Rodolfo (1989), Els ordes eqüestres militars i marítims i les marines menors de la Mediterrània durant els segles XIII-XVII, Universidad de Barcelona, pp. 38–39, ISBN 9788475287195
  • Media related to Jacopo Inghirami at Wikimedia Commons
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