The Papal Navy (, "Pontifical Navy"; ) was the maritime force of the Papal States. Loosely constituted, it was sporadically extant from approximately the Battle of Ostia (849) during the pontificate of Leo IV until the ascension of Pope Leo XIII in 1878 (though the Navy had ceased all operations in 1870), when he sold the last remaining Papal warship, the Immacolata Concezione.
The Papal Navy was separate from the Papal Army, a varying combination of volunteers, mercenaries, and Catholic military orders, disbanded in 1870. The modern Vatican City State does not maintain any formal naval or maritime forces and does not include any significant bodies of water.
History Birth Originally protected by the Byzantine navy, the Papal States found itself in need of a naval force of its own following a Muslim raid on Rome in 843 and the sack of the city's basilicas extra muros in 846. Under the leadership of Caesar, prince of Naples, a force of Neapolitan, Amalfitan, Gaetan, and Papal ships repulsed the pirates off Ostia in 849; this first engagement marked the birth of the Papal Navy. In 877, Pope John VIII personally commanded a new Papal fleet into battle against Saracen invaders, winning a victory near Terracina, where the Pope's sailors captured 18 galleys and freed 600 galley slaves.
Role in the Crusades In response to Mujahid's invasion of Sardinia in 1015/16, Pope Benedict VIII supported Pisan, Genoese, and Neapolitan combined expeditions to liberate the island; Thietmar of Merseburg states that Benedict dispatched a galley fleet to relieve the island. Pope Victor III (the immediate predecessor of Urban II) likewise organized a fleet of 300 ships to fight the Saracens at sea; this naval war begun by Pope Victor would soon become a core part of the Crusades first inaugurated by Pope Urban, and the fight at sea between Christian and Muslim navies would continue with little reprieve for centuries.
The Papal States subsidized various fleets during the Crusades and outfitted some squadrons of their own, which participated with Venice and other European Christian states and orders against the Saracen naval forces. Most of the Frisian fleet en route to the Fifth Crusade wintered in Civitavecchia on their way to Egypt in 1217; 18 ships wintered in nearby Corneto as their fleet was too large to all harbor together. In 1241, amidst the Guelphs and Ghibellines War and the papal election, Emperor Frederick II dispatched a combined Imperial-Pisan fleet of 16 galleys to Civitavecchia as part of an intense coercion against the conclave of the College of Cardinals - he simultaneously surrounded the city of Rome with Imperial soldiers. In 1244, Pope Innocent IV - lacking an independent maritime capability - asked his Lombard ally Genoa to ferry him to France to secure French support against the continued encroachments of the Emperor. 22 Genoese galleys arrived in Civitavecchia, received a papal blessing, and departed for France with Innocent aboard.
By 1291, the Papal Navy had been briefly revived - Pope Nicholas IV used his navy's 10 galleys along with 20 galleys chartered from Venice in a last-ditch attempt to reinforce Acre with 2,500 papal soldiers; the Papal fleet was defeated in battle and was too late to save the city from capture, but the navy was able to evacuate the people of Acre to Cyprus.
In 1334, four Papal galleys fought as part of the Holy League's fleet of 34 ships at the Battle of Adramyttion, where the League ultimately sank roughly 150 Turkish ships. Ten years later, Papal galleys fought as part of another Christian fleet of 24 ships in the 1344 Battle of Pallene, where they destroyed roughly 52 Turkish ships. Several months after that battle, the Christian fleet also captured the port city of Smyrna in Anatolia, which remained under Christian control until 1402.
Italian wars After several decades of competing loyalties in Italy (the papacy was in the process of returning to Italy from France and reconstituting its control over the former Papal territories) and no recorded Papal fleet, in 1431 the Papal Army, led by gonfaloniere Niccolò Fortebraccio and with strong Venetian assistance, launched an amphibious assault against Civitavecchia and recaptured it. In 1453, after a siege of only 53 days, the Ottoman army captured Constantinople and ended the Eastern Roman Empire; the loss of the Byzantine buffer made mainland Europe accessible to the Ottomans, and greatly disrupted the existing European balance of power. In response, Pope Callixtus III established a shipyard on the Tiber river and rapidly assembled a Papal fleet of galleys and transports (roughly 60 ships in all). In 1456, this fleet departed (carrying 300 cannons and 5,000 Papal soldiers) for the Aegean Sea, where it spent three years in regular combat with the Ottomans. In 1481, four papal galleys - gifted to the Papal Navy by Florence - participated in the successful crusade to liberate Otranto from its recent capture by the Ottomans, ferrying the combined Neapolitan-Hungarian army to Otranto. Although this crusade was a success, the four Papal galleys had all abandoned the fighting early because of concerns regarding the ongoing Black Death, which caused Ferdinand I of Naples to send his ambassador to Civitavecchia to demand the Pope to explain the Papal fleet's departure and formally dissolve their league of alliance (Pope Sixtus IV had intended for the crusading forces, upon liberating Otranto, to sail to and liberate Ottoman-held Vlorë as well). In 1486, Pope Innocent VIII commissioned the construction of four "triremes" in Civitavecchia to protect against piracy.
In 1494, Charles VIII of France captured Civitavecchia, and held the city for several months until he reached terms with Pope Alexander VI and returned the city. In 1496, a fleet of Venetian galleys and three Spanish ships commanded by Cesare Borgia (Alexander VI's son) arrived in Civitavecchia to reinforce the papacy during a period of pro-French unrest. Alexander VI soon ordered the Papal Navy to be revived, commissioning a modest fleet to engage in coastal patrol. In 1501, six galleys were launched at Civitavecchia; in 1502, an additional six galleys, six galleots, and two oared galleons were completed. During the War of the League of Cambrai, both a Venetian and a Spanish fleet came to Civitavecchia (in 1509 and 1512, respectively) to reinforce Pope Julius II, the Venetian ships flying the Papal Crossed Keys of St. Peter alongside the Venetian Lion of St. Mark.
Following the loss of Rhodes to the Ottomans, from 1523 to 1530, the Navy of the Knights Hospitaller was stationed in Civitavecchia alongside the Papal fleet, before the Order established itself in Malta. During this time, Rome was beset with violence and tumult due to the ongoing Italian Wars, with Austria, France, Spain, the Italian states, and other powers all vying for control over Italy and the central Mediterranean. In February 1525, a Spanish brigantine departed from Civitavecchia for mainland France to negotiate terms with the French; the Spanish and the Germans had just defeated the French in the Battle of Pavia days earlier, capturing several French nobles, including the French king Francis I. The Spanish brigantine returned in May to carry Francis off to Madrid, where he would remain in Spanish captivity until the Spanish and the French negotiated terms in March 1526. In May 1526, a mercenary fleet commanded by Andrea Doria arrived in Civitavecchia and offered to join the Papal Navy; when Pope Clement VII and Francis I formed the League of Cognac later that month, Doria was made commander of the League's (mostly French) naval forces until June 1528, when he defected and was made the grand admiral of Charles V's Imperial Navy - though by this time the Papal Navy was no longer involved in the war. On May 6th 1527, the Imperial Army sacked Rome and besieged Clement VII in Castel Sant'Angelo, capturing him one month later on June 5th. The Pope was a prisoner of Charles V until November 26th, when the Pope accepted terms and was released - one of the conditions of this release was the Pope's surrender of the ports of Ostia and Civitavecchia to the Emperor. From May, the Papal Navy had been leaderless - now, with the surrender of Civitavecchia, the Papal fleet was German property. Later negotiations between Clement VII and Charles V resulted in Charles V returning Civitavecchia to the Papal States on March 23rd 1529, in return for the Pope crowning Charles V as "King of Italy" on February 22nd 1530 and "Holy Roman Emperor" two days later; these negotiations also resulted in Charles V giving Malta to the Knights of St. John, beginning Hospitaller rule in Malta.
Wars with the Ottomans In 1532, the Papal navy sent its 12 galleys to the Aegean Sea to support a Spanish-Genoese fleet of 48 galleys and 35 vessels. In 1535, the Papal navy again supplied its 12 galleys to the Charles V's Holy League, which numbered 398 ships (including the 366-gun Portuguese São João Baptista) and roughly 30,000 soldiers in total. The League defeated an Ottoman fleet of 84 ships and captured the port city of Tunis.
In 1541, eight galleys of the Papal Navy participated in the Imperial-led Algiers Expedition, part of the Christian fleet of 500 ships commanded by Andrea Doria; the expedition managed to land several thousand soldiers outside of Algiers, but severe weather sunk 150 of the fleet's ships and the expedition ended in miserable failure, with thousands killed and thousands more abandoned and enslaved in Algiers. In September 1556, the Spanish invaded and occupied the Papal States - the occupation ended one year later, with the September 1557 signing of a peace treaty between Pope Paul IV and the Spanish Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba. In 1560, the Papal Navy participated in a campaign to capture Tripoli and fought in the Battle of Djerba, part of the Christian fleet of roughly 120 commanded by Gianandrea Doria, the great-nephew of Andrea Doria. The Christian fleet lost the battle, which ended the Tripoli campaign; half of the fleet was sunk, thousands of sailors perished, and thousands of soldiers who had been landed and entrenched on the island of Djerba were besieged by the Ottomans for three months before being captured during an unsuccessful attempt to break out of the siege. None of the Papal ships survived the battle.