Deepening :

The tale of ‘Redbeard’ and Giulia

Sperlonga experienced one the most terrifying raids led by the legendary pirate Khayr al-Din, famous in the Mediterranean with the nickname of ‘Redbeard’ (Ariadeno Barbarossa). He was a well known and brutal pirate whom the Turkish ruler, Suleiman I had appointed as admiral heading the Ottoman fleet; his name and the shadow of his ships were feared all over from Cyprus to Morocco’s coasts. It was with this fleet that Redbeard began to raid the coast of Sicily, Lucca and the Tyrrhenian sea. The south Tyrrhenian Sea was often infested with Turkish war ships and in the summer of 1534 he suddenly attacked and destroyed Sperlonga, where he had landed with a specific mission in mind: kidnapping the young countess of Fondi, Giulia Gonzaga; Giulia was notorious for her beauty to the point to become object of desire of Suleiman I the Turkish ruler who wished her as concubine in his harem. Redbeard specific mission was to make a special present to Suleiman I: bring him Giulia.

It was the dawn on the 8th of August 1534. Sperlonga’s chronicles recounts that the little population was in deep sleep. The few sentinels left in the Torre Truglia, must have been also sleepy and tired after a long night guard. Suddenly they realised that nine corsairs’ vessels were without a sound advancing towards the beach. The pirates were armed with harquebus, scimitars, bows and arrows. Further out in the open sea the chilling dark shadows of Barbarossa’s main fleet came under into view. After the alarm was given the inhabitants of Sperlonga, men and women, still half asleep, rushed to shelter in the castle, abandoning their homes in the village. They must have sweared to prefer death fighting rather than falling into the hands of Barbarossa’s ruthless men.

After abruptly destroying fishermen nets and boats in the harbour the pirates reached the village centre meeting no resistance and begun to ransack store cellars and the population houses, setting alight everything they find and killing the fewer people barricaded indoors. Most of the populace found refuge in the castle but they couldn’t hold out for long. Fifty of those who had retreated within it were killed ruthlessly.

Chronicles reports that those whom surrendered were brought to the ‘Angolo’ beach to be filed before Barbarossa in person freed 24 among the unwell and elderly. The rest of the prisoners, among them 14 young women, were taken aboard and brought away as slaves for the Turkish themselves.Sperlonga was destroyed and left with only 37 villagers among those left free and 13 others who for some reasons were away from the village when it was raided . After Sperlonga’s sack Barbarossa’s forces moved rapidly few miles inland in the attempt to reach by surprise Fondi’s castle, the residence of Giulia Gonzaga. But donna Giulia was warned of the plot and escaped in time to save herself, fleeing to safety across the Aurunci’s mountains. The village was sacked again in 1622 and a memory of these events stays in the name of the Valle dei Corsari (The Corsairs’ Valley) beside the Grotto.