Apart from other interests, this enterprise held for D. John the special enchantment of being like the one his father had so gloriously achieved thirty-nine years before. He knew all about it from having heard Luis Quijada refer to it thousands of times, as he was one of the great heroes of this campaign. D. John therefore desired to follow his father step by step, and left Naples on the 1st of August, 1573, with the greatest part of the fleet and the Italian and Spanish infantry, hoping to collect the rest of the ships, people, victuals and equipment of war in passing Messina, Palermo, Trapani and the island of Favignana. At Messina he joined the Marqués de Santa Cruz with the remainder of the infantry, and, while the galleys were being loaded, drilled the soldiers with continual exercises and manœuvres, subjecting them to the most severe discipline. On one of these occasions, the Royal Standard being hoisted and D. John a witness of the affair from an elevation, a gentleman of Florence dared to pull out his dagger and wound an Italian captain. D. John ordered him to be decapitated, without anyone being surprised at the order or thinking it unduly severe. This happened at Messina on the 19th of August.
They also stopped at Palermo and Trapani, where they had a magnificent welcome. "The Trapanians had made," says the confessor Servia in his diary, "a pier for His Highness, which entered 100 feet into the sea. It had three arches in front and 17 along it. On the centre arch towards the sea were the Royal Arms, on the right those of His Highness, on the left those of the town. The columns and arches were covered with blue, yellow, green and red taffeta. On each column was a little red and yellow taffeta flag. They presented to him a very nice grey horse covered with black velvet with harness of gold." And further on he adds, "On the 30th, after dinner, His Highness went to visit the Annunziata of Trapani. It is a Carmelite convent, outside the city, of great sanctity, and in the evening he confessed in the sacristy, where in other days his father the Emperor Charles V had done so."
At last all the fleet joined at Marsala, eighteen miles from Trapani, in a beautiful harbour which had been long stopped up, and which since that time has been named of _Austria_, as it was D. John who had it opened and put in order. There were 140 ships of great tonnage, 12 large boats, 25 frigates, 22 feluccas, among which were divided 20,000 infantry, Spaniards, Italians and Germans, without counting numerous volunteers and 750 pioneers, 400 light horse, good artillery, abundant ammunition, sufficient machines and victuals, and many yoke of oxen to drag the cannon. In the Sicilian galley with the Duque de Sesa was the Moorish Prince Muley Hamet, destined to ascend the throne of Tunis.