234 benjamin arbel
In this sector of private shipping it was difficult to deny the advantages
of cheaper and more easily operable merchantmen and the availability of
adequate timber in the Adriatic provinces.443 Eventually, Venice saw no
point in preventing its own colonial subjects from building ships. After
the mid-16th century, ships were even built with public subvention in
Dalmatia, particularly on the island of Curzola (whose shipbuilders could
use timber from the Sottovento), as well as on Crete.444 In the latter case,
the new policy was combined with an encouragement to build galleons,
which were well-suited for defense against corsairs as well as for warfare
against enemy fleets.445 Cattaro and Perasto were also shipbuilding
centers.446 The range of overseas territories whose natural resources were
enlisted to serve the Venetian shipbuilding industry was thus extended,
but the colonial subjects were the ones whose involvement in the maritime
sector was on the rise.
We have seen that English and Dutch ships (to which we should add
French ones) were active in great numbers in Crete and the Ionian Islands
from the late 16th century onward. They were there to stay for a long time,
as reflected by the presence of their consuls in Venetian territories. Eng-
lish consuls appeared in Crete in 1522 and in Zante from the 1620s, and
there were English vice-consuls in Corfu and Cephalonia in 1672, if not
earlier.447 Dutch consuls were established in Zante in 1618 and in Crete
in 1625.448 At the beginning of the 18th century, Corfu hosted consuls
from Naples, France, Genoa, the Netherlands, Messina, the Papal States,
and Malta. However, these “nations” were always ready to look for better
443 It was even harder to cope with the Ragusans, who operated their vessels in Venice’s
Dalmatian ports under the cover of Venetian subjects. See Hocquet, Le sel, 2:528.
444 Lane, “Venetian Shipping,” pp. 19–20; Frederic C. Lane, Navires Et Constructeurs
À Venise Pendant La Renaissance (Paris, 1965), pp. 48 n., 106–08; Massimo Costantini, “I
galeoni di Candia nella congiuntura marittima veneziana cinque-seicetesca,” in Gherardo
Ortalli, ed., Venezia e Creta (Venice, 1998), pp. 207–32.
445 Massimo Costantini, “I galeoni di Candia,” pp. 216–29; Baroutos, “Sovvention per
fabricar galioni”; Franco Rossi, “Rifornimenti marittimi agli arsenali veneziani del Levante,”
in Gherardo Ortalli, ed., Venezia e Creta (Venice, 1998), pp. 415–42.
446 Gelcich, Memorie storiche, pp. 165–66; Ljubić, Commissiones et relationes, 2:8 (1528);
Braudel, The Mediterranean, p. 141. Hocquet, Le sel, 2:280; on Perasto, see Paci, La ‘Scala’
di Splato, p. 88.
447 Benjamin Arbel, “Riflessioni sul ruolo di Creta nel commercio mediterraneo del
Cinquecento,” in Gherardo Ortalli, ed., Venezia e Creta (Venice, 1998), p. 252; Alfred Wood,
A History of the Levant Company (London, 1935), p. 67; Mortimer Epstein, The English
Levant Company. Its Foundation and its History to 1640 (London, 1908), pp. 98–99; Allen
B. Hinds, ed., Calendar of State Papers Relating to English Affairs in the Archives of Venice,
vol. 37 (1671–72) (London, 1939), no. 298.
448 Koster, “The Conquering Dutch Merchants and Shipowners,” pp. 116–17.