Batalla naval en el golfo de Nápoles

Bruegel had recently come back to Antwerp from a long journey over the Alps to Italy, and this small panel is one of the few sea pieces we have from him. It looks like a record of a real engagement in the bay below Naples, with the round Castel dell'Ovo jutting into the water and ships wheeling into a defensive ring. It is mostly invention though. No such battle is known to have happened just here, and the harbour does not really match the place. What he did carry home from Italy was the coastline itself, the light on the water and the shape of the Mediterranean ships, and he set them down from memory once he was back north. The attribution to Bruegel rested on how closely the handling matches his Tower of Babel, another view built from things he had seen in the south.