Arsenal (italian Arsenale)

Major sights in Venice

An arsenal is a governmental establishment for the storing, development, manufacturing, testing, or repairing of arms, ammunition, and other war materiel.
For centuries, Venice was the centre of maritime trade and culture on the Mediterranean. Using its complex network of nautical routes, it connected various cultures, nations and languages.

The origins of the Arsenal date back to 1104, following some fires that destroyed a sequence of shipyards that were scattered throughout the city.
The evolution of the Arsenal structure was marked by a succession of extensions and by ongoing changes in the structures themselves, both following accidents, but above all, due to technical progress and historical events.
The "Old" Arsenal was built between 1100 and 1300, and the "New" Arsenal complex between 1300 and 1400, while the "Newest" Arsenal was built between 1473 and 1573.

The Arsenal represents a vast, striking and strategic area of the inner city covering about 32 hectares, of which 9 hectares are water. The structure complex has represented the fundamental heart of the Venetian economy and civil history, so much so that in 1509 the Senate officially defined it as the "heart of the Veneto region".

The geometrical laws on which this vast complex was based can still be seen in the elemental and repeated module of the shipyard, whose design was dictated by the simple rules of ship building techniques.
The only buildings used for complementary activities to ship building, have differing and sometimes considerable dimensions, such as the "Corderie" (the old rope factories), which is 317 meters long and the "Squadratori" building, which is 140 meters long.

By 1400, the Arsenal was already the world’s most extensive industrial complex, with 3,000 employees (known as “Arsenalotti”) and a production capacity which, by the 1500s, had reached no less than six galleys a month.
In the wake of the devastation of the Arsenal in 1797 by the French, before their surrender to Austria, rebuilding work was undertaken during the period of Austrian rule between 1814-30. This was followed by the creation of new earthworks and dry docks in the sandbank area to the north of the Arsenal in 1875-78, immediately after the annexation of Venice by Italy.
It was during this period that the Arsenal’s docks saw the building of some of the Italian Navy’s greatest ships, including the cruiser Amerigo Vespucci (1882), the battleships Francesco Morosini (1885) and Sicilia (1891), the scout Quarto and the submarines Nautilus and Nereide.
From 1900, shipbuilding was transferred to private shipyards and no longer took place in the arsenals. Part of the Arsenal is still under the control of the military authorities, and legally speaking, remains state property.

Today, the Arsenal lies in a state of decay, but remains the subject of an important debate in the local community, because it could provide an ideal complex from which to re-launch development in this historic city, and be an excellent site for new, compatible, high-technology production activities.

Today you can find at the Arsenal of Venice the Teatro alle Tese and the Teatro Piccolo Arsenale, created by converting some of the Arsenal's buildings which, in addition to the Corderie, are among the most important and mesmerizing venues for artistic and musical events during the Venice Biennale.