The Battle of Lepanto was a naval engagement taking place on 7 October 1571 in which a fleet of the Holy League, a coalition of European Catholic maritime states arranged by Pope Pius V, led by Spanish admiral Don Juan of Austria and mostly financed by Spain, decisively defeated the fleet of the Ottoman Empire on the northern edge of the Gulf of Corinth, off western Greece. The Ottoman forces sailing westwards from their naval station in Lepanto (Turkish:İnebahtı; Greek:Ναύπακτος or Έπαχτος Naupaktos or Épahtos) met the Holy League forces, which came from Messina, Sicily, where they had previously gathered.