The Calabrian Gian Dionigi Galeni, alias Ulu\ue7 Ali (1518-1587), was a Christian convert to Islam who played a leading role during the political clash that opposed the Spanish Monarchy to the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth-century Mediterranean. This study, rather than focusing on his wanderings at sea as an Algerian corsair at the expense of Christian galleys and coastlines, highlights his process of socio-political assimilation into the Ottoman context. In the same way, the research emphasises how he consolidated, exercised, and maintained a high level of decision-making power at the Sublime Porte. The analysis of his political figure, which is analysed through the administrative and military positions he held in the Ottoman Empire, offers a great opportunity to explore a wide network of patronage relationships that not only facilitated his rise, but also allowed him to control the Ottoman Mediterranean policy as Kapudan Pasha (first admiral). Therefore, by using a social network analysis approach, the case of Ulu\ue7 Ali becomes a unique prism to retrace the history of the sixteenth-century Mediterranean. Far from being a traditional biography that focuses on the individual, this research is presented as a study that used the individual to cast new lights on the social relationships that characterized his context. Starting from a careful examination of Ulu\ue7 Ali's career, therefore, I shall enrich the understanding of a series of phenomena that defined the modern Mediterranean space, including social mobility and cross-cultural diplomacy
