Paperback / softback | |
January 11, 2007 | |
9780801886256 | |
English | |
280 | |
9.00 Inches (US) | |
6.00 Inches (US) | |
.92 Pounds (US) | |
$29.00 USD, £21.50 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
Electronic book text | |
December 17, 2009 | |
9780801896095 | |
9780801840951 | |
English | |
280 | |
9.00 Inches (US) | |
6.00 Inches (US) | |
$29.00 USD, £21.50 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
Shipbuilders of the Venetian Arsenal
Workers and Workplace in the Preindustrial City
The master ship builders of seventeenth-century Venice formed part of what was arguably the greatest manufacturing complex in early modern Europe. As many as three thousand masters, apprentices, and laborers regularly worked in the city's enormous shipyards. This is the social history of the men and women who helped maintain not only the city's dominion over the sea but also its stability and peace.
Drawing on a variety of documents that include nearly a thousand petitions from the shipbuilders to the Venetian governments as well as on parish records, inventories, and wills, Robert C. Davis offers a vivid and compelling account of these early modern workers. He explores their mentality and describes their private and public worlds (which in some ways, he argues, prefigured the factories and company towns of a later era). He uncovers the far-reaching social and cultural role played by women in this industrial community. He shows how the Venetian government formed its shipbuilders into a militia to maintain public order. And he describes the often colorful ways in which Venetians dealt with the tensions that role provoked—including officially sanctioned community fistfights on the city's bridges.
The recent decision by the Italian government to return the Venetian Arsenal to civilian control has sparked renewed interest in the subject among historians. Shipbuilders of the Venetian Arsenal offers new evidence on the ways in which large, state-run manufacturing operations furthered the industrialization process, as well as on the extent of workers' influence on the social dynamics of the early modern European city.
About the Author
Robert C. Davis is a professor of Italian Renaissance and early modern Mediterranean history at the Ohio State University. His publications include The Jews of Early Modern Venice, The War of the Fists, and (coedited with Judith Brown) Gender and Society in Renaissance Italy.
Reviews
A little gem, superbly crafted and well-written... Davis has certainly achieved his aim in describing and explaining the Venetian Arsenal and its workers with a competency that makes it well worth the price.
This is social history at its best and an important, original contribution to the history of Venice. Not only does it shed much new light on a large segment of the Venetian working class, but it also adds to our understanding of the Venetian system of government's legendary stability and shrewd management of potentially disruptive forces.
Davis skillfully describes the arsenalotti and their world, using a wealth of manuscript and secondary materials.
Johns Hopkins University Press | |
The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science | |
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From 17 | |
Paperback / softback | |
January 11, 2007 | |
9780801886256 | |
English | |
280 | |
9.00 Inches (US) | |
6.00 Inches (US) | |
.92 Pounds (US) | |
$29.00 USD, £21.50 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
Electronic book text | |
December 17, 2009 | |
9780801896095 | |
9780801840951 | |
English | |
280 | |
9.00 Inches (US) | |
6.00 Inches (US) | |
$29.00 USD, £21.50 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
Other Titles by Robert C. Davis
The Jews of Early Modern Venice
Other Titles from The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science
A Baronial Family in Medieval England
Beloved Lady
Daniel Webster and Jacksonian Democracy
Other Titles in HISTORY / Europe / General
Riding to Arms
Elephant Trails
Ireland's Helping Hand to Europe
Other Titles in European history
Underground Streams
Women in Wartime
Eastward of Good Hope