I was the most successful sea commander of my age; I won every naval battle I fought, and I fought a good number. My avarice was considered extreme in a time when some wars were fought purely for profit. My cruelty was thought notable even in a cruel age, though a whole city celebrated when I slaughtered all the survivors of force of Crusaders.
I will make it easier:
"a whole Christian city clebrated"
HiHi
Would that city by any chance be Genoa, got some dim bells ringing at the back of my head re Genoa-Venice rivalry.
All the Best
Peter
How about Roger of Lauria?
How about Roger of Lauria?
Ding!
A winner. Ruggiero di Lauria was an Italian-born seaman whose major actions were all fought on behalf of the Kindom of Aragon. Taking advantage of the Sicilian revolt against their Angevin overlords in 1282, Di Lauria won battles at Malta and Castellamare, and Sicily fell to the Aragonese. Sicily was a Papal fief, and Pope Martin IV promptly excommunicated King Peter III of Aragon and called a crusade against him. The invading French crusaders at first made good progress, but then their naval force was crushed by di Lauria at the Battle of Les Formigues, on 4 September 1285. There are three absolutely contradictory accounts of the battle, but they agree that it was fought at night and that the day after the battle, in a atrocity that was considered startling even at the time, di Lauria had all his prisoners roped together in coffles and towed them out to sea behind his galleys. Later in the month di Lauria landed his men and participated in the destruction of the retreating French army at the Battle of the Col de Panissars. The city of Barcelona celebrated the victory for eight days, and the football team of the Reial Club Deportiu Espanyol de Barcelona has used Roger's coat of arms as its own for the last century.
The Crusades clue had me off on a tangent for a while. I thinking Constantinople was the city. Once I ruled that out, I started to think the Crusader clue was a "trick" and that you were referring to something other than the Holy Land Crusades.
So, I searched for "Medievel Naval Commanders" and made it to Roger of Lauria pretty quickly.