Karelian birch and porcelain chess "Battle of Lepanto"

Lepanto chess is an illustration of the largest naval battle of the 16th century between the Turkish and the united Christian fleets, which took place on October 7, 1571 near Lepanto (the medieval name of Nafpaktos (Greece) on the northern shore of the Gulf of Patras).

The battle was preceded by the capture by the Turks of Venetian trading posts in Morea, Cyprus and the Aegean Islands, and the establishment of Turkish suzerainty over Algeria.

To counter the Turkish expansion, on May 25, 1571, the Holy League was created as part of the Spanish Empire, Pope Pius V (Pope from January 17, 1566 to May 1, 1572), Venice, Genoa and other Italian states.

The league fleet (whose main striking force was 208 galleys) under the command of Don Juan of Austria discovered Turkish forces led by Ali Pasha Muezzin-zadeh (275 galleys) in the Gulf of Patras and attacked it.

The battle, which took the form of separate fierce battles, ended in a complete victory for the Christians. The losses of the Turks amounted to 30 thousand people killed and wounded, 3 thousand people were captured. The Christians captured or sank almost the entire Turkish fleet (only 35 ships escaped), and freed 15,000 slaves who were used as rowers on galleys.

The flagship of Ali Pasha Muezzin-zadeh was boarded, Ali Pasha Muezzin-Zadeh himself was killed.

The victory at Lepanto allowed dispelling the myth of the invincibility of the Turks, but did not affect the outcome of the confrontation between the Christian states and the Ottoman Empire (according to the treaty of 1573, Venice ceded Cyprus to the latter, in 1574 Tunisia was returned to the Turks, captured a year earlier by Juan of Austria).

The Battle of Lepanto was the last major battle of the galley fleets in history. It is noteworthy that one of the participants in the battle was the great Spanish writer Miguel Cervantes (1547-1616), who was wounded in the arm during the battle. On his way home, he was captured by pirates and sold into slavery. Impressions of the Battle of Lepanto, the journey home and the capture by pirates are reflected in the writer's novel "Don Quixote".