Most Americans know Barcelona only as the site of the 1992 Olympic Games. Some may also know the city as the home of the early 19th-century naturalist architect Antoni Gaudi, whose many fabulous and whimsical structures ornament the Catalan capital. Just one of his buildings, the dazzling Temple de Sagrada Familia, alone attracts hordes of rapt visitors annually, each one eager to see the cathedral now well into its second century of construction. Begun in 1888, it is unlikely to be finished much before 2030.
The city has another treasure: its wonderful Museu Maritim, just west of Barcelona’s famed Gothic Quarter. The maritime museum is located in the former royal shipyards complex, a neatly restored medieval site that would be a compelling attraction even if empty. (It shares a harborfront plaza with a tall, decorated column, the Monument a Colom, marking where Christopher Columbus returned to Europe in 1493 from his first expedition to the New World to be greeted at court by Ferdinand II and Isabella.) Originally the industrial heart of the powerful navy of the kingdom of Aragon and Catalonia, the museum’s ancient brick buildings now house superb exhibits, maritime documentation and educational services centers, a cafe, and the inevitable book and souvenir shop.
The Museu Maritim’s centerpiece is a beautiful full-scale, 195-foot-long replica of Don Juan of Austria’s war galley, Real, from which he commanded the 200-plus ships of the Holy League on 7 October 1571 at Lepanto against Ali Pasha and his roughly 300 vessels of the Ottoman Navy. The huge fleets closing ponderously in line abreast at perhaps four knots, certainly not much faster, flags flying and drums throbbing must have been a splendid sight. In 1911 the clash inspired G. K. Chesterton’s rollicking poem, in which he imagines “Don Juan pounding from the slaughter-painted poop/Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate’s sloop/ Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds/Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds.”
At the end of that day, perhaps as many as 30,000 Muslims were killed or wounded in hand-to-hand fighting or drowned in the Gulf of Corinth. Perversely in view of the horrific slaughter, aside from the irreplaceable loss of trained Turkish sailors and fighting men, the Mediterranean’s largest naval battle would have little strategic significance. The failed Ottoman sieges of Catholic Vienna and not war at sea halted the westward spread of the Ottoman Turks and their religion.
Don Juan’s flagship was built in these same assembly halls more than four centuries ago (as allegedly were two of the three ships of Columbus’ fleet). His galley is reproduced in all its magnificence, from its stem—looked over by an imposing cluster of assorted bronze guns, the costly, big cannon pointing forward fixedly below a rank of smaller swivel pieces—to its ornate stem—beneath the three huge signal lanterns, piously named “Faith,” “Hope,” and “Charity” that marked her as a commander’s vessel.
Benches at the 59 wooden oars mark where nearly 250 slaves in chains worked the long sweeps, capable of moving the ship as fast as seven knots, for a few miles anyway. Lateen sails on two masts provided the usual motive power. The oars were largely for operating in and out of port and tactical maneuver. A glimpse through a helpfully unplanked portion of Real’s hull into the cramped spaces below her deck reveals one reason why galley cruises were short: There is barely enough room to stow a few weeks’ food and water for the crew of slaves, sailors, and fighting men.
The replica was based on nine years of research by the museum’s former director, Jose Maria Martinez-Hidalgo, but there is—necessarily—some uncertainty about the historic vessel’s true dimensions and configuration. Another scholar, John Francis Guilmartin, suggests the Real might have been only 165 feet overall with a beam of 25 feet, but powered by 420 oarsmen, six to an oar on 35 rowing banks.
The first exhibit, at the entrance, is a selection of typical small fishing vessels of the western Mediterranean, depicting the evolution of this fundamental ocean industry in the area. Perhaps more interesting exhibits to the foreign visitor are those that trace the evolution of wooden-ship construction across centuries (including an elegant model of HMS Victory, Vice Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson’s flagship) right into the age of steam propulsion. The museum’s collection also includes early marine charts, among which is one owned by Amerigo Vespucci, and navigation instruments, presented in several fine, small exhibits.
One popular tourist guidebook credits the museum’s upstairs dining room as Barcelona’s “hands-down winner for dining in the midst of medieval elegance.” Like most of the city’s tourist attractions, the Museu Maritim is accessible by city bus and from the underground (Drassanes Station). It’s open daily from 1000 to 1900, and closed only four days each year, 25 and 26 December and 1 and 6 January. A modest admission fee is charged, which includes use of an excellent English-language audio tour recorder. The museum has a multilingual Web site online at www.diba.es/mmaritim.
