User:Ennaken/Ambrogio Spinola

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The houses of Spinola and Doria were rivals for authority within the republic. Ambrogio Spinola continued the rivalry with the count of Tursi, then the chief of the Dorias. He was not successful, and having lost a lawsuit into which he had entered to enforce a right of pre-emption of a palace belonging to the Salerno family which the Doria wished to purchase, he decided to withdraw from the city and advance the fortunes of his house by serving the Spanish monarchy in Flanders. In 1602 he and his brother Federico entered into a contract with the Spanish government—a condotta on the old Italian model. It was a speculation on which Spinola risked the whole of the great fortune of his house. Ambrogio Spinola undertook to raise 9.000 Lombard mercenaries for land service, and Federico to form a squadron of galley ships for service on the coast.