On Board the Ships: Weaponry and Men

A comparison between a fourteenth-century and a sixteenth-century galley would not show significant differences with regard to the main features of construction, but it would certainly reveal a marked change in the weaponry of both ship and crew.

The galley's most important advantage was its maneuverability, in large part due to the human engine made up of its oarsmen (galeotti). They accounted for 75-80 per­cent of the men embarked, and were subject to frequent use during voyages. Unlike other powers, Venice refused to use convicts until quite late: the first convict galley went to sea as late as 1545. There was a long tradition of free oarsmen who served in both the war fleet and on merchant galleys. Until roughly the end of the fifteenth century, the galleys fulfilled both commercial and military functions, so that there was a considerable overlap in the use of oarsmen between the war and merchant fleets. In the event of war, merchant galley crews provided a significant portion of the war fleet's rowers, a flow that was inverted as soon as peace returned. The traditional recruitment areas for oarsmen were the eastern coastline of the Adriatic—mainly Dalmatia—as well as the Greek islands.

This system of neighborhood-based conscription disappeared during the fif­teenth century, with responsibility shifting toward other forms of organization of urban society—for instance, the Scuole (confraternities) grandi e piccole and the guilds. Such forms of social solidarity were in fact transitioning from a territorial to an institutional basis, and the confraternities and trade guilds played a crucial mediating role.^[1641] From the 1480s, guilds and some religious institutions were called on to provide either oarsmen or money. During the Ottoman War of 1537-1540, the mechanism of recruitment was better organized. Venice and its immediate hin­terland (the so-called Dogado) were to provide a total of about 20,000 conscripts enrolled in a galley rowers' reserve. Those enrolled enjoyed some privileges (the most important of which was access to certain offices in the urban administration) that were transferable to a son in case of death, and they received a wage during their period of actual service. Soon, however, those drafted paid for substitutes to serve in their stead, and the numbers of oarsmen assigned to the guilds and Scuole eventually represented a tax to be paid in cash. This brought about the emergence of a veritable market for rowers that drew in men seeking money from afar.

The early sixteenth century also witnessed the establishment of a conscription system in the mainland dominion among the peasantry.^[1642] In 1522, the government decided to form a reserve of 6,000 men, ages 18 to 40, to be trained as oarsmen.

The other large area of recruitment for oarsmen was Venice's overseas dominion (the Dominio da mar), which included Istria, Dalmatia, Albania, and Greek islands. The sea colonies in fact represented the traditional recruiting area for the Serenissimas oarsmen, both by conscription and volunteer service.^[1644] In 1350, at least 10 galleys of a fleet of 35 were manned with oarsmen from Dalmatia and the Greek colonies.^[1645] Later, the number of colonial rowers grew, while that of native Venetians decreased. In the first half of the sixteenth century, the peacetime standing fleet mostly relied on Dalmatian crews (the so-called schiavoni), who accounted for about half the men embarked, while Venetians and mainland peasants were added in the event of war.

As we said before, the use of convicts as oarsmen came about comparatively late. Venetian patricians probably delayed this decision, both for ethical reasons and be­cause they had not earlier had serious difficulties in recruiting free rowers.

If the fleet's sailors and oarsmen came from a wide recruitment area, extending from the Venetian mainland to the Aegean islands, its officers were almost al­ways Venetian. Only a certain number of galleys, crewed by men from Dalmatia and Crete, were commanded by foreign captains. Until the early sixteenth century, a typical Venetian patrician was supposed to have spent part of his youth at sea. Sailing on the galleys with the title of noble crossbowmen, young members of the ruling elite began a cursus honorum that would take them from galley decks to mer­chant warehouses in the Levant, from service in embassies to the halls of power in the Ducal Palace. One of the most important characteristics of the Venetian ruling class's training was that patricians were subjected to a fast turnover in the many offices of the Republic's political and administrative system. It was therefore unu­sual for any single patrician to remain long in any one office in a specific sector of the government. With respect to the navy, therefore, until the early sixteenth century the patricians who commanded galleys had already acquired considerable prior ex­perience in naval matters. From the beginning of the sixteenth century, however, when merchants seldom sailed the sea routes in person, patricians breathed less and less sea air. In any event, it is worth stressing again that naval commanders did not hold office long—being required to switch to other duties—which meant that Venice did not have a group of professional naval officers who made life aboard the galleys their definitive career choice. It would be wrong, however, to argue that seventeenth-century Venice lacked men suitable for naval warfare. The long war for Crete showed that the Venetian fleet was efficiently led and posed a perma­nent threat to the Ottomans. Although Venetians of that period were less familiar with the sea than their ancestors, the long naval tradition was maintained in offi­cial symbolism and exalted in family traditions. It was not difficult to come across mementos of Lepanto or other naval battles in the halls of patrician palaces.