ABSTRACT
Marino Sanuto draws attention to the most original feature of the Venetian Arsenal - the fact that it was self-contained. For a very long time this fact made it unique among European arsenals, and its parallel was found only in the Ottoman Empire. This autonomy gave rise to a division or labour between various groups of workers: from women sailmakers to artillerymen, from ship's carpenters to sawyersvarious workers undertook a wide range of activities contributing to the complex processes of naval ship-building. This degree of specialization contributed to the superiority of Venetian warships over all their contemporaries. The first phase of the history of naval policy up to about 1545, was the object was to build a fleet of fifty light and six great galleys. In the second phase, the quota doubled: one hundred 'light' galleys and twelve 'great' galleys This second period lasted until 1633, when the government reverted to its former programme.
