Venetian Arsenal
Encyclopedia
The Venetian Arsenal was a complex of state-owned shipyard
s and armories
clustered together in Venice
in northern Italy
. It was responsible for the bulk of Venice's naval power during the middle part of the second millennium AD. It could also be described as the first mass production complex using standardized and interchangeable parts
.
era. It was the largest industrial complex in Europe prior to the Industrial Revolution
, spanning an area of about 45 ha (111.2 acre), or about fifteen percent of Venice. Surrounded by a 2 mi (3.2 km) rampart
, laborers and shipbuilders regularly worked within the Arsenal
, building ships that sailed from the city's port. With high walls shielding the Arsenal from public view and guards protecting its perimeter, different areas of the Arsenal each produced a particular prefabricated ship part or other maritime implement, such as munitions, rope, and rigging. These parts could then be assembled into a ship in as little as one day. An exclusive forest owned by the Arsenal navy, in the Montello
hills area of Veneto
, provided the Arsenal's wood supply.
The Arsenal produced the majority of Venice's maritime trading vessels, which generated much of the city's economic wealth and power, lasting until the fall of the republic
to Napoleon
's conquest of the area in 1797. It is located in the Castello
district of Venice, and it is now owned by the state.
-style establishment may have existed as early as the eighth century, though the present structure is usually said to have been begun in 1104 during the reign of Ordelafo Faliero
, although there is no evidence for such a precise date. It definitely existed by the early thirteenth century.
Initially the state dockyard worked merely to maintain privately-built naval
ships, but in 1320 the Arsenale Nuovo was built, much larger than the original. It enabled all the state's navy and the larger merchant ships to be both constructed and maintained in one place. The Arsenal incidentally became an important center for rope
manufacture, and housing for the arsenal workers grew up outside its walls.
Venice developed methods of mass-producing
warships in the Arsenal, including the frame-first system to replace the Roman
hull-first practice. This new system was much faster and required less wood. At the peak of its efficiency in the early sixteenth century, the Arsenal employed some 16,000 people who apparently were able to produce nearly one ship
each day, and could fit out, arm, and provision a newly-built galley with standardized parts
on a production-line
basis not seen again until the Industrial Revolution
.
The staff of the Arsenal also developed new firearm
s at an early date, beginning with bombard
s in the 1370s and numerous small arms for use against the Genoese
a few years later. The muzzle velocity of handgun
s was improved beyond that of the crossbow
, creating armor-piercing rounds. Arsenal-produced arms were also noteworthy for their multi-purpose utility; the Venetian condottieri
leader, Bartolomeo Colleoni
, is usually given credit as being the first to mount the Arsenal's new lighter-weight artillery
on mobile carriages for field use.
The Arsenal's main gate, the Porta Magna, was built around 1460 and was the first Classical revival structure built in Venice. It was perhaps built by Antonio Gambello from a design by Jacopo Bellini
. Two lion
s taken from Greece
situated beside it were added in 1687. One of the lions, known as the Piraeus Lion
, is notable for the runic
defacements carved in it by invading Scandinavian mercenaries during the eleventh century.
In the late sixteenth century, the Arsenal's designers experimented with larger ships as platforms for heavy naval guns. The most impressive was the galleass
, already used at the pivotal Battle of Lepanto
against the Ottoman Turks
, and developed from the old merchanting "great galley". It was huge, propelled by both sails and oars, and was a virtual floating fortress, with guns mounted on wheeled carriages along the sides in the modern fashion. It was slow and unwieldy in battle, however, and few were ever built. The galleon
, also developed at the Arsenal, was an armed sailing ship, a slimmer version of the merchant "round ship". It was useful in major naval battles, but not in the small bays and off the extensive lee shore
s of the Dalmatia
n coast.
Significant parts of the Arsenal were destroyed under Napoleonic rule, and later rebuilt to enable the Arsenal's present use as a naval base
. It is also used as a research center, an exhibition venue during the Venice Biennale
and is home to a historic boat preservation center.
was unique for its time and resulted in possibly the single largest industrial complex in Europe prior to the Industrial Revolution
. Indeed even Dante
himself was transfixed by the wonder of the Arsenal, who found it inspiring enough to include it in his Inferno:
As in the Arsenal of the Venetians
Boils in winter the tenacious pitch
To smear their unsound vessels over again
For sail they cannot; and instead thereof
One makes his vessel new, and one recaulks
The ribs of that which many a voyage has made
One hammers at the prow, one at the stern
This one makes oars and that one cordage twists
Another mends the mainsail and the mizzen…
The Arsenal's amazing capacity for production was rare in a time when "most of Europe had no manufacturing abilities more efficient than the guild system, the slow and tradition-bound way craftsmen had of passing on skills to their sons or apprentices while monopolizing production and sale of craft pieces in a given region... The Arsenal was something different, a harbinger of future times." In this respect at least, the Arsenal represented a huge breakthrough in the ability to mass-produce items, or in the very least, producing items at a scale that was unique to its time.
The Venetian Arsenal was not the mass production facility that it was to be until about 1320 with the creation of the Arsenale Nuovo. The Arsenale Nuovo was simply a larger and more efficient version of the original. However, its significance is not to be underestimated. Prior to this time the Arsenal had served mainly as a place to maintain privately-built ships. With the creation of the Arsenale Nuovo, and the development and introduction of the Great Galley, the Venetian Arsenal would start to take on its industrial form. The invention of the Great Galley itself is significant because they were able to be built frame-first. This process used less timber than the earlier hull-first building system, resulting in much faster build times. This was crucial to the process that would lead to the Arsenal becoming a mass-production center. By the 16th century, the Arsenal had become the most powerful and efficient shipbuilding enterprise in the world. Not only did it supply ships, rigging, and other nautical supplies, it was also a major munitions depot for the Venetian navy and was capable of outfitting and producing a fully equipped merchant or naval vessel in less than one day.
This is in stark contrast to the rest of Europe, where the production of a similar sized vessel could often take months. This amazing production capacity was a result of the massive number of people that the Arsenal employed, almost 16,000, and the streamlining of production within the Arsenal itself. Production was divided into 3 main stages: framing
, planking and cabins, and final assembly. Each stage employed its own workers who specialized in that particular stage of production as well as using standardized parts to produce an almost assembly-line process. The Arsenal often kept up to 100 galleys in different stages of production and maintenance, that way once a galley was launched another could be immediately put into the finishing stages of production. The layout of the Arsenal itself was modified to enable minimal handling of materials during the stages of production. The Arsenal also saw the use of standardized, interchangeable parts. All of these things made the Arsenal one of first mass-production centers in the world and the source of Venetian wealth and naval power. Perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of the Arsenal was its employment of the moving assembly line. The galley itself, through the use of a canal
, was moved along during its stages of construction, allowing the galley to be brought to the materials and workers, instead of the materials and workers going to the galley itself. This remarkable feature of the Venetian Arsenal was not seen again until the early 20th century when Henry Ford
"invented" the modern assembly line.
In 1593, Galileo
became an external consultant
to the Arsenal, advising military engineer
s and instrument makers and helping to solve shipbuilders' problems, many of them relating to matters of ballistics
. He was also responsible for creating some major innovations in the production and logistics
of the Arsenal. As a result of his interactions with the Arsenal, Galileo published a book later in his life addressing a new field of modern science, that concerned with the strength and resistance of materials. This science largely saw its roots in the knowledge of the shipwrights
of the Venetian Arsenal. It is also supposed that Galileo
's initial visits to the Arsenal were as a result of his initiative to further investigate Aristotle
's questions concerning shipbuilding and navigation, found in the Mechanical Questions of Aristotle. As a result of these investigations, which were pursued by observing the work of the shipwrights, Galileo was asked to help in resolving a specific problem with the rowing units of the galleys. As a result of his study of Aristotle, and in particular Question 4 regarding the propulsion
of ships by oar, Galileo was able to produce a response to this question and ended up becoming a major source of information for the shipbuilders of the Arsenal concerning matters of rowing, instruments, and ballistics
.
's wealth and power rested in her ability to control trade in the Mediterranean
. This would not have been possible without an extremely large navy and merchant force. By 1450, over 3,000 Venetian merchant ships were in operation, both as supply ships for Venetian merchants and as warships for the Venetian navy. This amazingly large amount of ships required constant maintenance and outfitting. The Venetian Arsenal was not only able to function as a major shipyard, but was also responsible for these routine maintenance stops that most Venetian galleys required. This required a large amount of money and the Venetian government spent almost 10% of its income on the Arsenal. However, this naval power resulted in the domination of Mediterranean commerce. Venice's leading families, largely merchants and nobleman, were responsible for creating some of the grandest palaces and employing some of the most famous artists ever known. This opulence and wealth would not have been possible without the naval force constructed by the Arsenal. Indeed with the creation of the Great Galley and the mass production capacity of the Arsenal, "the fleets of Venice were the basis for the greatest commercial power the European world had yet seen."
Shipyard
Shipyards and dockyards are places which repair and build ships. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Dockyards are sometimes more associated with maintenance and basing activities than shipyards, which are sometimes associated more with initial...
s and armories
Armory
Armory or armoury may mean:*Armory , a military location used for the storage of arms and ammunition*Armory , the study of coats of arms*Armory , a Marvel Comics character...
clustered together in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
in northern Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. It was responsible for the bulk of Venice's naval power during the middle part of the second millennium AD. It could also be described as the first mass production complex using standardized and interchangeable parts
Interchangeable parts
Interchangeable parts are parts that are, for practical purposes, identical. They are made to specifications that ensure that they are so nearly identical that they will fit into any device of the same type. One such part can freely replace another, without any custom fitting...
.
General Overview
Construction of the Arsenal began around 1104, during Venice's republicanRepublic of Venice
The Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in...
era. It was the largest industrial complex in Europe prior to the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
, spanning an area of about 45 ha (111.2 acre), or about fifteen percent of Venice. Surrounded by a 2 mi (3.2 km) rampart
Defensive wall
A defensive wall is a fortification used to protect a city or settlement from potential aggressors. In ancient to modern times, they were used to enclose settlements...
, laborers and shipbuilders regularly worked within the Arsenal
Arsenal
An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, issued to authorized users, or any combination of those...
, building ships that sailed from the city's port. With high walls shielding the Arsenal from public view and guards protecting its perimeter, different areas of the Arsenal each produced a particular prefabricated ship part or other maritime implement, such as munitions, rope, and rigging. These parts could then be assembled into a ship in as little as one day. An exclusive forest owned by the Arsenal navy, in the Montello
Montello (TV), Italy
The Montello is a hill in the province of Treviso, Veneto, northern Italy, and the site of a World War I battle.The bean-shaped hill measures about 5 km north-south by 13 km east-west...
hills area of Veneto
Veneto
Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule...
, provided the Arsenal's wood supply.
The Arsenal produced the majority of Venice's maritime trading vessels, which generated much of the city's economic wealth and power, lasting until the fall of the republic
Republic of Venice
The Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in...
to Napoleon
Napoleon I of France
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
's conquest of the area in 1797. It is located in the Castello
Castello, Venice
Castello is the largest of the six sestieri of Venice, Italy. The district grew up from the thirteenth century around a naval dockyard on what was originally the Isole Gemini, although there had been small settlements of the islands of San Pietro di Castello , also called Isola d'Olivolo, since at...
district of Venice, and it is now owned by the state.
History and Shipbuilding
The ByzantineByzantine architecture
Byzantine architecture is the architecture of the Byzantine Empire. The empire gradually emerged as a distinct artistic and cultural entity from what is today referred to as the Roman Empire after AD 330, when the Roman Emperor Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire east from Rome to...
-style establishment may have existed as early as the eighth century, though the present structure is usually said to have been begun in 1104 during the reign of Ordelafo Faliero
Ordelafo Faliero
Ordelafo Faliero de Doni was the 34th Doge of Venice. He was the son of the 32nd doge, Vitale Faliero de' Doni. He was a member of the Minor Council , an assembly formed from members of the so-called "apostolic families" that, in oligarchical Venice, assumed the governmental functions of...
, although there is no evidence for such a precise date. It definitely existed by the early thirteenth century.
Initially the state dockyard worked merely to maintain privately-built naval
Navy
A navy is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake- or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions...
ships, but in 1320 the Arsenale Nuovo was built, much larger than the original. It enabled all the state's navy and the larger merchant ships to be both constructed and maintained in one place. The Arsenal incidentally became an important center for rope
Rope
A rope is a length of fibres, twisted or braided together to improve strength for pulling and connecting. It has tensile strength but is too flexible to provide compressive strength...
manufacture, and housing for the arsenal workers grew up outside its walls.
Venice developed methods of mass-producing
Mass production
Mass production is the production of large amounts of standardized products, including and especially on assembly lines...
warships in the Arsenal, including the frame-first system to replace the Roman
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
hull-first practice. This new system was much faster and required less wood. At the peak of its efficiency in the early sixteenth century, the Arsenal employed some 16,000 people who apparently were able to produce nearly one ship
Ship
Since the end of the age of sail a ship has been any large buoyant marine vessel. Ships are generally distinguished from boats based on size and cargo or passenger capacity. Ships are used on lakes, seas, and rivers for a variety of activities, such as the transport of people or goods, fishing,...
each day, and could fit out, arm, and provision a newly-built galley with standardized parts
Mass production
Mass production is the production of large amounts of standardized products, including and especially on assembly lines...
on a production-line
Assembly line
An assembly line is a manufacturing process in which parts are added to a product in a sequential manner using optimally planned logistics to create a finished product much faster than with handcrafting-type methods...
basis not seen again until the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
.
Firearm
A firearm is a weapon that launches one, or many, projectile at high velocity through confined burning of a propellant. This subsonic burning process is technically known as deflagration, as opposed to supersonic combustion known as a detonation. In older firearms, the propellant was typically...
s at an early date, beginning with bombard
Bombard (weapon)
A bombard is a large-caliber, muzzle-loading medieval cannon or mortar, used chiefly in sieges for throwing heavy stone balls. The name bombarde was first noted and sketched in a French historical text around 1380. The modern term bombardment derives from this.Bombards were usually used during...
s in the 1370s and numerous small arms for use against the Genoese
Republic of Genoa
The Most Serene Republic of Genoa |Ligurian]]: Repúbrica de Zêna) was an independent state from 1005 to 1797 in Liguria on the northwestern Italian coast, as well as Corsica from 1347 to 1768, and numerous other territories throughout the Mediterranean....
a few years later. The muzzle velocity of handgun
Handgun
A handgun is a firearm designed to be held and operated by one hand. This characteristic differentiates handguns as a general class of firearms from long guns such as rifles and shotguns ....
s was improved beyond that of the crossbow
Crossbow
A crossbow is a weapon consisting of a bow mounted on a stock that shoots projectiles, often called bolts or quarrels. The medieval crossbow was called by many names, most of which derived from the word ballista, a torsion engine resembling a crossbow in appearance.Historically, crossbows played a...
, creating armor-piercing rounds. Arsenal-produced arms were also noteworthy for their multi-purpose utility; the Venetian condottieri
Condottieri
thumb|Depiction of [[Farinata degli Uberti]] by [[Andrea del Castagno]], showing a 15th century condottiero's typical attire.Condottieri were the mercenary soldier leaders of the professional, military free companies contracted by the Italian city-states and the Papacy, from the late Middle Ages...
leader, Bartolomeo Colleoni
Bartolomeo Colleoni
Bartolomeo Colleoni was a Venetian condottiero, who became Captain-General of the republic of Venice, where there is a famous statue showing him on horseback.-Biography:...
, is usually given credit as being the first to mount the Arsenal's new lighter-weight artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
on mobile carriages for field use.
The Arsenal's main gate, the Porta Magna, was built around 1460 and was the first Classical revival structure built in Venice. It was perhaps built by Antonio Gambello from a design by Jacopo Bellini
Jacopo Bellini
Jacopo Bellini was an Italian painter. Jacopo was one of the founders of the Renaissance style of painting in Venice and northern Italy. His sons Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, and his son-in-law Andrea Mantegna, were also famous painters....
. Two lion
Lion
The lion is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger...
s taken from Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
situated beside it were added in 1687. One of the lions, known as the Piraeus Lion
Piraeus Lion
The Piraeus Lion is one of four lion statues on display at the Venetian Arsenal, where it was displayed as a symbol of Venice's patron saint, Saint Mark. It was originally located in Piraeus, the ancient harbour of Athens...
, is notable for the runic
Runic alphabet
The runic alphabets are a set of related alphabets using letters known as runes to write various Germanic languages before the adoption of the Latin alphabet and for specialized purposes thereafter...
defacements carved in it by invading Scandinavian mercenaries during the eleventh century.
In the late sixteenth century, the Arsenal's designers experimented with larger ships as platforms for heavy naval guns. The most impressive was the galleass
Galleass
The galleass developed from large merchant galleys.Converted for military use they were higher and larger than regular galleys. They had up to 32 oars, each worked by up to 5 men. They usually had three masts and a forecastle and aftcastle. Much effort was made in Venice to make these galleasses...
, already used at the pivotal Battle of Lepanto
Battle of Lepanto (1571)
The Battle of Lepanto took place on 7 October 1571 when a fleet of the Holy League, a coalition of Catholic maritime states, decisively defeated the main fleet of the Ottoman Empire in five hours of fighting on the northern edge of the Gulf of Patras, off western Greece...
against the Ottoman Turks
Ottoman Turks
The Ottoman Turks were the Turkish-speaking population of the Ottoman Empire who formed the base of the state's military and ruling classes. Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks is scarce, but they take their Turkish name, Osmanlı , from the house of Osman I The Ottoman...
, and developed from the old merchanting "great galley". It was huge, propelled by both sails and oars, and was a virtual floating fortress, with guns mounted on wheeled carriages along the sides in the modern fashion. It was slow and unwieldy in battle, however, and few were ever built. The galleon
Galleon
A galleon was a large, multi-decked sailing ship used primarily by European states from the 16th to 18th centuries. Whether used for war or commerce, they were generally armed with the demi-culverin type of cannon.-Etymology:...
, also developed at the Arsenal, was an armed sailing ship, a slimmer version of the merchant "round ship". It was useful in major naval battles, but not in the small bays and off the extensive lee shore
Lee shore
The terms lee shore and windweather or ward shore are nautical terms used to describe a stretch of shoreline. A lee shore is one that is to the lee side of a vessel - meaning the wind is blowing towards it. A weather shore has the wind blowing from inland over it out to sea...
s of the Dalmatia
Dalmatia
Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
n coast.
Significant parts of the Arsenal were destroyed under Napoleonic rule, and later rebuilt to enable the Arsenal's present use as a naval base
Naval base
A naval base is a military base, where warships and naval ships are deployed when they have no mission at sea or want to restock. Usually ships may also perform some minor repairs. Some naval bases are temporary homes to aircraft that usually stay on the ships but are undergoing maintenance while...
. It is also used as a research center, an exhibition venue during the Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
and is home to a historic boat preservation center.
Mass production
The Venetian Arsenal's ability to mass produce galleys on an almost assembly-line processAssembly line
An assembly line is a manufacturing process in which parts are added to a product in a sequential manner using optimally planned logistics to create a finished product much faster than with handcrafting-type methods...
was unique for its time and resulted in possibly the single largest industrial complex in Europe prior to the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
. Indeed even Dante
Dante Alighieri
Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...
himself was transfixed by the wonder of the Arsenal, who found it inspiring enough to include it in his Inferno:
Boils in winter the tenacious pitch
To smear their unsound vessels over again
For sail they cannot; and instead thereof
One makes his vessel new, and one recaulks
The ribs of that which many a voyage has made
One hammers at the prow, one at the stern
This one makes oars and that one cordage twists
Another mends the mainsail and the mizzen…
The Arsenal's amazing capacity for production was rare in a time when "most of Europe had no manufacturing abilities more efficient than the guild system, the slow and tradition-bound way craftsmen had of passing on skills to their sons or apprentices while monopolizing production and sale of craft pieces in a given region... The Arsenal was something different, a harbinger of future times." In this respect at least, the Arsenal represented a huge breakthrough in the ability to mass-produce items, or in the very least, producing items at a scale that was unique to its time.
The Venetian Arsenal was not the mass production facility that it was to be until about 1320 with the creation of the Arsenale Nuovo. The Arsenale Nuovo was simply a larger and more efficient version of the original. However, its significance is not to be underestimated. Prior to this time the Arsenal had served mainly as a place to maintain privately-built ships. With the creation of the Arsenale Nuovo, and the development and introduction of the Great Galley, the Venetian Arsenal would start to take on its industrial form. The invention of the Great Galley itself is significant because they were able to be built frame-first. This process used less timber than the earlier hull-first building system, resulting in much faster build times. This was crucial to the process that would lead to the Arsenal becoming a mass-production center. By the 16th century, the Arsenal had become the most powerful and efficient shipbuilding enterprise in the world. Not only did it supply ships, rigging, and other nautical supplies, it was also a major munitions depot for the Venetian navy and was capable of outfitting and producing a fully equipped merchant or naval vessel in less than one day.
This is in stark contrast to the rest of Europe, where the production of a similar sized vessel could often take months. This amazing production capacity was a result of the massive number of people that the Arsenal employed, almost 16,000, and the streamlining of production within the Arsenal itself. Production was divided into 3 main stages: framing
Framing (construction)
Framing, in construction known as light-frame construction, is a building technique based around structural members, usually called studs, which provide a stable frame to which interior and exterior wall coverings are attached, and covered by a roof comprising horizontal ceiling joists and sloping...
, planking and cabins, and final assembly. Each stage employed its own workers who specialized in that particular stage of production as well as using standardized parts to produce an almost assembly-line process. The Arsenal often kept up to 100 galleys in different stages of production and maintenance, that way once a galley was launched another could be immediately put into the finishing stages of production. The layout of the Arsenal itself was modified to enable minimal handling of materials during the stages of production. The Arsenal also saw the use of standardized, interchangeable parts. All of these things made the Arsenal one of first mass-production centers in the world and the source of Venetian wealth and naval power. Perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of the Arsenal was its employment of the moving assembly line. The galley itself, through the use of a canal
Canal
Canals are man-made channels for water. There are two types of canal:#Waterways: navigable transportation canals used for carrying ships and boats shipping goods and conveying people, further subdivided into two kinds:...
, was moved along during its stages of construction, allowing the galley to be brought to the materials and workers, instead of the materials and workers going to the galley itself. This remarkable feature of the Venetian Arsenal was not seen again until the early 20th century when Henry Ford
Henry Ford
Henry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry...
"invented" the modern assembly line.
Galileo and the Arsenal
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei , was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations and support for Copernicanism...
became an external consultant
Consultant
A consultant is a professional who provides professional or expert advice in a particular area such as management, accountancy, the environment, entertainment, technology, law , human resources, marketing, emergency management, food production, medicine, finance, life management, economics, public...
to the Arsenal, advising military engineer
Military engineer
In military science, engineering refers to the practice of designing, building, maintaining and dismantling military works, including offensive, defensive and logistical structures, to shape the physical operating environment in war...
s and instrument makers and helping to solve shipbuilders' problems, many of them relating to matters of ballistics
Ballistics
Ballistics is the science of mechanics that deals with the flight, behavior, and effects of projectiles, especially bullets, gravity bombs, rockets, or the like; the science or art of designing and accelerating projectiles so as to achieve a desired performance.A ballistic body is a body which is...
. He was also responsible for creating some major innovations in the production and logistics
Logistics
Logistics is the management of the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of destination in order to meet the requirements of customers or corporations. Logistics involves the integration of information, transportation, inventory, warehousing, material handling, and packaging, and...
of the Arsenal. As a result of his interactions with the Arsenal, Galileo published a book later in his life addressing a new field of modern science, that concerned with the strength and resistance of materials. This science largely saw its roots in the knowledge of the shipwrights
Shipbuilding
Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to before recorded history.Shipbuilding and ship repairs, both...
of the Venetian Arsenal. It is also supposed that Galileo
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei , was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations and support for Copernicanism...
's initial visits to the Arsenal were as a result of his initiative to further investigate Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
's questions concerning shipbuilding and navigation, found in the Mechanical Questions of Aristotle. As a result of these investigations, which were pursued by observing the work of the shipwrights, Galileo was asked to help in resolving a specific problem with the rowing units of the galleys. As a result of his study of Aristotle, and in particular Question 4 regarding the propulsion
Marine propulsion
Marine propulsion is the mechanism or system used to generate thrust to move a ship or boat across water. While paddles and sails are still used on some smaller boats, most modern ships are propelled by mechanical systems consisting a motor or engine turning a propeller, or less frequently, in jet...
of ships by oar, Galileo was able to produce a response to this question and ended up becoming a major source of information for the shipbuilders of the Arsenal concerning matters of rowing, instruments, and ballistics
Ballistics
Ballistics is the science of mechanics that deals with the flight, behavior, and effects of projectiles, especially bullets, gravity bombs, rockets, or the like; the science or art of designing and accelerating projectiles so as to achieve a desired performance.A ballistic body is a body which is...
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Venice's Naval Power
VeniceVenice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
's wealth and power rested in her ability to control trade in the Mediterranean
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
. This would not have been possible without an extremely large navy and merchant force. By 1450, over 3,000 Venetian merchant ships were in operation, both as supply ships for Venetian merchants and as warships for the Venetian navy. This amazingly large amount of ships required constant maintenance and outfitting. The Venetian Arsenal was not only able to function as a major shipyard, but was also responsible for these routine maintenance stops that most Venetian galleys required. This required a large amount of money and the Venetian government spent almost 10% of its income on the Arsenal. However, this naval power resulted in the domination of Mediterranean commerce. Venice's leading families, largely merchants and nobleman, were responsible for creating some of the grandest palaces and employing some of the most famous artists ever known. This opulence and wealth would not have been possible without the naval force constructed by the Arsenal. Indeed with the creation of the Great Galley and the mass production capacity of the Arsenal, "the fleets of Venice were the basis for the greatest commercial power the European world had yet seen."