El fracaso de Túnez: ambiciones y derrota después de Lepanto (1573-1574) [The failure of Tunis: Ambitions and defeat after Lepanto (1573-1574)]

During the brief experiment of Spanish rule over Tunis (1573-74), the impulses and constants, as well as the contradictions that characterised the prolonged articulation and failure of Spanish expansionism in North Africa seem to be discernible with substantial clarity. Its analysis raises questions such as the role played by the struggle against Islam in defining the Spanish imperial vocation, the patterns of its territorial growth and the identification of practices for reorganising conquered societies. The study of such a particular case, an undoubtedly remarkable episode which has received little attention in recent research, offers the great opportunity to reassess some historiographical paradigms and to compare them with the suggestions of advanced interpretative proposals in a global perspective.