venice’s maritime empire in the early modern period 213
ports, including Famagusta, Candia, La Canea, Corfu, Lesina, and Zara, had
arsenals which provided professional maintenance facilities and services
to the military galleys. In some of them, ship hulls (arisili) were kept as a
reserve fleet that could be commissioned locally within a short time—in
the late 16th century, up to 30 galleys could be added to the fleet in this
way. Finally, they could also be used as shipyards to build new galleys.337
IX. Internal Conflict ManagementManifestations of injustice, oppression, and abuse of power were abundant,
but while Venetian magistrates were occasionally involved in phenomena
of this kind, the principal protagonists in this sphere generally belonged
to the local elites. Consequently, disorder and resistance was in most
cases either an expression of a power struggle between local potentates
or, more rarely, attempts by the weak and exploited to liberate themselves
from exploitation by other members of the local society. Such were the
cases of the disturbances in Dalmatia that took place between 1510 and
1514, particularly on the island of Lesina (Hvar),338 of the so-called “Revolt
of the Commoners” that broke out in Zante in May 1628,339 of the violent
events that took place in Corfu in 1640 and in 1652 and once again in 1748,340
of those that occurred in Cephalonia between 1748 and the early 1750s and
again in 1770,341 as well as of the peasant rebellions that took place in
337 Tenenti, Cristoforo da Canal, p. 120. Ennio Concina, “ ‘Sostener in vigore le cose del
mare’: arsenali, vascelli, cannoni,” in Venezia e la difesa del Levante. Da Lepanto a Candia
(1570–1670) (Venice, 1986), pp. 50–53; Aymard, “La leva marittima,” p. 456; Franco Rossi,
“Arsenali veneziani in Levante: un rinovamento strategico?” in Martino Ferrari Bravo
and Stefano Tosato, eds., Gli arsenali oltremarini della Serenissima. Approvvigionamenti
e strutture cantieristiche per la flotta veneziana (secoli XVI–XVII) (Milan, 2010), pp. 161–
90; Martino Ferrari Bravo, “Il potenziamento degli arsenali navali di Creta negli anni
ottanta del Cinquecento,” in Ferrari Bravo and Tosato, eds., Gli arsenali oltremarini della
Serenissima, pp. 201–16.
338 Praga, History of Dalmatia, pp. 166–68; O’Connell, Men of Empire, pp. 144–49.
339 Dimitris Arvanitakis, Κοινωνικές αντιθέσεις στην πόλυ της Ζακύνθου. Το ρεμπελιό των
ποπολάρων (1628) (Athens, 2001), pp. 161–200.
340 Bacchion, Il dominio veneto su Corfù, pp. 151–54; Dimitris Arvanitakis, “Οι ταραχές του
1640 στην Κέρκυρα (παρατηρήσεις γιά τήν προβλιματική τής εξέγέρσης),” in ΣΤ’ Διεθνές Πανιόνιο
Συνέδριο, Ζάκθνθος, 23–27 Σεπτεμβρίου 1997. Πρακτικά, 2 vols (Athens, 2001), 2:225–41; Elly
Yotopoulou-Sisilianou, “Alcune considerazioni sulle classi sociali corfiotte e sulla politica
veneta nei loro confronti in base a quanto risulta dalle fonti e in modo particolare dai testi
delle ambasciate,” in Massimo Costantini & Aliki Nikiforou, eds., Levante veneziano. Aspetti
di storia delle Isole Ionie al tempo della Serenissima (Rome, 1996), pp. 110–21; Yotopoulou-
Sisilianou, ed., Πρεσβείες, pp. 82–88.
341 Pignatorre, Memorie storiche, 1:178–79, 181–82, 185–90.