Battle of Lepanto

Lepanto, fought 7 October 1571 in the Gulf of Patras off western Greece, was the last great galley battle of the Mediterranean. A Holy League fleet of Venice, Spain, and the Papacy under Don John of Austria, fielding more than 200 galleys and six Venetian galleasses, destroyed the Ottoman fleet, capturing or sinking most of its ships and freeing thousands of Christian galley slaves. The heavy-gunned galleasses proved decisive. The victory halted Ottoman naval expansion in the central Mediterranean and was widely commemorated in Renaissance art.