Antonio Grimaldi, Genoese Admiral in 1332, was charged to revenge the ravages of the Aragonese on the coasts of Liguria, at a time when civil war prevented the Genoese from defending themselves and their possessions. Grimaldi, with a fleet of fifty-five vessels, harried the coasts of Catalonia, leaving behind him only ruins, and loading his vessels with plunder and captives. He carried off the galleys of the enemy from the harbour of Majorca. The Aragonese sent against him a fleet of twenty-four vessels, but he defeated it. In 1353 he was again placed at the head of the Genoese naval forces, and again sent against the Aragonese, who were now in league with the Venetians. Grimaldi had a fleet of fifty-two sail, and he hoped to fight and defeat the enemy before they could effect a junction. In this he was disappointed. He met the combined fleets near an islet off the north coast of Sardinia, August 29th, 1353. Pisani, the admiral of the Venetians, concealed a portion of his fleet, and Grimaldi, deceived, attacked the rest. Whilst thus engaged, he saw the detached portion of the Venetian flotilla approach, and he found that he had to deal with seventy-three sail. To present a strong front to the enemy, he bound his galleys together by the sides and masts, reserving only four on each wing to act as reserve. The Venetians and Catalans seeing this arrangement, also united their vessels to the number of fifty-four, but kept sixteen free at their flanks. This singular disposition shows how little, if at all, naval manœuvres had altered since the time of the civil war between Cæsar and Pompey. The Catalans brought up three round tubs of vessels called _coques_ against the right wing of Grimaldi, and sank as many of his galleys. Alarmed at this, he unlinked eleven of his vessels and rallied them to the eight of the reserve, and, without striking another blow, fled, and left the rest of the fleet a prey to the enemy. All the thirty vessels thus abandoned by the cowardly admiral were obliged to surrender.