Venetian Ships and Shipbuilders of the Renaissance

2013 Reprint of 1934 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. The author has endeavored to present a picture of the changes that took place in the Venetian shipbuilding industry in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Such a study obviously has great importance for the larger question of the nature and progress of the decline of Venice as a naval and commercial power. A patient and prolonged use of Venetian archives is evidenced on almost every page. Most of the material, outside of that previously published, was found in the State Archives in Venice; the regulations of the Arsenal, the municipal shipyard, were particularly valuable. The first two chapters present the story of the changes in naval architecture that took place in the fifteenth century, which were more considerable than is generally realized. The round ship, with improvements in design of hull and rigging, displaced the galley for both commercial and military purposes. By 1500 Venetian round ships for war were often of 1,500 tons, though commercial ships were usually under 1,000 tons. Chapters iii and iv discuss the personnel of the Venetian shipbuilding industry and its famed shipwrights. There follows, chapters v-vii, a study of the mechanics of shipbuilding and the course of private enterprise in building merchant vessels. Privately built merchant vessels declined in number during the depression of the end of the fifteenth century: the amount of capital needed to build a 400 ton or larger ship was too great for an individual contractor to be willing to undertake. By the middle of the sixteenth century even smaller merchant ships had to be bought abroad, though such purchase was in open violation of Venetian law. The last chapter (xii) on timber supplies is, in a sense, the most revealing of all. Briefly put the evidence is conclusive that from the middle of the fifteenth century the near and available supplies of oak, larch, and fir were being irreparably depleted. Attempts at conservation, acquisition of new forests, "banning," planting, were fruitless. By the middle of the sixteenth century, at least, most of the oak used for privately built ships was bought outside Venetian territory. Dutch ships could be built cheaper with Baltic woods. There are ten tables and seven appendixes containing data on numbers of ships built, measurements and capacities, wages of employees and an excursus on money values. Illustrated throughout.