Page 191 - Il Mediterraneo quale elemento del Potere Marittimo - Atti 16-18 settembre 1996

VENICE ANO HER ENEMIES, 1453-1573: A CASE STUDY IN STRATEGIC FLEXIBILITY 177

the period with which we are concerned bere. As a breeding ground for nautical
competence, Venice bears favorable comparison with dassical Athens but with an
importane caveat: Venice produced no Alcibiades and no Syracuse expedition. In
sum, the social compact between commoners and patricians worked, and worked
co the perceived benefit of all. This yielded significant advantages in diplomacy,
intelligence, strategie and tactical leadership, and above ali in the competence of
her oarsmen and mariners. As noted above, the importance of human power to
maritime commerce an d war magnified the effect of all these factors to Venice' s
advantage. The principal means of which it did so during the peri od of my concern
was the trireme ,alla senzile, a remarkable reality which cries for more scholarly at-
tention (7>. Early recognition of the potential of heavy gunpowder ordnance at sea
on the part ofVenetian mariners, shipwrights and gunfounders yielded importane
advantages from the.1470s on. So did che skill with which Venetian military engi-
neers adjusted to the power of heavy siege artillery, though the Ottomans stole a
march on them in final years of the fifteenth century. Finally, Venice demonstrated
a remarkable genius for military administration: Venetian proveditorii providing the
prototype for the later systematization of war in northern lands that would make
Europe supreme in the world.
Time precludes any attempt to relate in narrative fashion how the factors di-
scussed above carne to bear in Venice's struggle for survival between che fall of
Constantinople and the War of Cyprus, which is a pity for much of che fascination
of the story is in the details. O ne generai conclusion suggests itself, and that is that
the Venetian Republic thrived, prospered, and survived in large measure on the
basis of ics ability to produce highly skilled oarsmen and use them exceedingly well...
again, the trireme alla senzile was a pillar ofVenetian tactical success and economie
prosperity. When adapted to heavy gunpowder ordnance, a matter in which Veni-
ce cook the lead, it became a pillar of strategie survival. If I bave clone nothing
more than to refocus scholar~y attention on this remarkable artifact of the naval
architect's skill and its intersection with gunpowder ordnance, I will be well satisfied.

NOTES

(l) Sean McCarthy, "The Civil-Military Revolution in Cinquecento Venice", unpublished
Ohio State University term paper, History 712, summer 1996, Professor Guilmartin. Tellin-
gly, che members of che Collegio, che executive council of the Senate charged with maritime mat·
ters were termed savi agli ordùzi, while those charged with matters on land were termed Javi
di terraferma competence relating to service at sea required no qualifier; that relating to matters
ashore did.
(2) N. A. M. Rodger, "The Development ofBroadside Gunn~ry, 1450-1650", The Mari-
ner'.r Mirror, vol. 82, No. 3 (Augusc 1996), 301-324, es p. 302.