Boatmaking and Castellani
It should come as no surprise that a city whose fortunes rested on maritime trade set huge store by ship construction, and Venice’s military-industrial boatyard was among the earliest and most developed sites of industrial architecture in pre-modern Europe. The Arsenale, as it is called, is clearly visible on both modern and historic maps – a huge tract on east of the city in the Castello district, marked out by the geometric docks, vast industrial sheds and enclosed by massive walls. Today the site is mostly still managed by the Italian navy, with access limited to parts of the site during the Biennale exhibitions.
Particularly at times of war, as much as 10% of the city’s early modern labour force was employed there, between construction, maintenance and of course employed on the ships in active service around the Mediterranean. Around the enclave of the Arsenale what amounts to a company town provided accommodation for generations of workers, accommodated in purpose built housing. Arsenalotti – as the workers were known – benefitted from a stable state salary throughout their lives, subsidised rent, and a range of other perks that led one scholar to suggest they were a “patriciate among workers” (Davis, 18). Yet in the first quarter of the seventeenth century the shipbuilding industry was in decline, salaries flatlined and workers often worked a second job in the private sector.
This is where the squero comes in. This squero is one just a few working boatyards that still survive in the city. Wood was shipped along waterways from the Dolomites north of Venice for use in the shipping industry (as well, of course in construction and for the piles used to make the lagoon marshes more stable). Boatyards such as this serviced the city’s needs for élite and commercial craft, from the sleek gondolas, to the workaday barges used to move goods around, including water for the wells. If you have time you can step into the church of San Trovaso where the altare degli Squeraroli (that boatyard-workers’ guild altar), erected in 1628, shows a gondola etched into the altar frame.
Fabrizio Nevola
Further reading
Robert C. Davis, 1991/2009. Shipbuilders of the Venetian Arsenal. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Gianfranco Munerotto, La gondola nei secoli: storia di una continua trasformazione tra architettura navale e arte, Venezia: Mare di carta, 2021
HistoryCity Apps 