On October 7, 1571, the sea was covered with fire and blood, while corpses and debris of galleys were carried away by the swell, at the entrance of the Gulf of Patras, near the Greek city of Lepanto, the current Naupacte.
Under the standard of Christ on the cross, that of the Holy League, the Christian West confronted the Muslim East, which flew the flag of the prophet.
Lepanto is considered one of the most important naval battles since Actium.
If this one, by putting an end to the Roman civil wars, had signed the act of birth of an empire, that which takes place in Lepanto stops on the contrary the rise of another empire by carrying a blow of stop to the Ottoman expansion. Religious confrontation, it is also a political struggle, in particular for the preservation of the Spanish and Venetian interests.
From the victory of Lepanto dates the emergence of a certain common conscience of European countries linked by the same faith.
Comments