206 benjamin arbel
coast guards transmitted signals by means of fire, smoke, and mortars.
This is how guards located on the small island of Paxo (Paxi) could inform
the governors of Corfu about maritime movements in the area. In case of
alarm, mounted soldiers hurried to the place to meet the raiders.310 This
system of coast guards and mounted stradioti was completed by small
squadrons of war galleys, the so-called galleys of the guard (galee di guar-
dia), which were stationed in the overseas colonies and could participate
in their defense against pirates and corsairs, protect maritime transporta-
tion in the vicinity of the territory concerned, and act against contraband.311
The Dialogue Between Ship and Shore: Fortifications and the Navy
The Venetian answer to two of the main problems of defense of its
overseas territories—lack of sufficient manpower and great distance—
was a combination of two components: fortified compounds that were
meant to offer shelter for the defenders until help from the outside could
reach the territory under attack; and the navy, which could transport
reinforcements and supplies to the fortresses under siege. This was part
of that “dialogue between ship and shore” characterized by John Hale.312
These were also the domains in which the greatest material resources
were invested.
Fortifications
Venice’s strategy of defense of its overseas territories was based on fortified
cities and a system of forts, provided with victuals and ammunitions that
were meant to enable resistance of long sieges (up to two years) until
reinforcement arrived by sea.313 Until the early 16th century, most works
in this field were restricted to repairs and maintenance of old medieval
fortifications. But the changes in military technology, especially the more
effective use of artillery, necessitated a renewal of the systems of defense.
310 Jacoby, La féodalité, p. 329 (Tinos and Mykonos); Slot, Archipelagus, pp. 55–56;
Arbel, “Η Κύπρος,” p. 478.
311 Alberto Tenenti, Cristoforo Da Canal. La marine vénitienne avant Lépante (Paris,
1962), pp. 129–30; Guglielmo Zanelli, “La piazzaforte di Zara nei secoli XVI–XVIII,” in
Michela Dal Borgo and Guglielmo Zanelli, Zara: una fortezza, un porto, un arsenale (secoli
XV–XVIII) (Rome, 2008), p. 39; Renzo Paci, La ‘Scala’ di Spalato e il commercio veneziano
nei Balcani fra Cinque e Seicento (Venice, 1971), p. 117n. For anti-contraband activities,
see Oliver Jens Schmitt, “ ‘Contrabannum’—Der adriatisch-balkanische Schmuggel im
ausgehenden Mittelalter,” Südost Forschungen 67 (2008), 1–26.
312 Hale, “Part II: 1509–1617,” p. 429.
313 Ibid., p. 439.