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tenant enjoyed all the components of a true palace—portego, camere,
mezzanine, storerooms, attic rooms, and private staircase—interlocking
with those of the other inhabitants in a complex three-dimensional spatial
distribution. These multi-occupancy schemes, disguised as enormous
palaces, became a potent expression of the “Myth of Venice.” Francesco
Sansovino’s encomiastic statements that all houses in the city, no matter
how simple, had windows of “the clearest and finest glass,” and that no
visitable house was too poor to afford “walnut furniture, green draperies,
carpets, pewter, copper, gold chains, silver forks and rings,” swelled the
image of prosperity and equality that the Republic sought to convey.60
The recognition of the city as a complex organism of interdependent
parts has widened the fields of interest yet further. The study of the
city’s commercial and naval infrastructure now benefits from the fruits
of detailed archival research—especially in the case of the Rialto mar-
ket and the Arsenal.61 Research on these centers has not only elucidated
the building histories of their individual structures but also has set them
in the context of similar complexes in other cities in Europe and further
afield.62 In the field of utilitarian architecture work already carried out
for the Trecento could serve as the basis for future studies.63 Moorings,
waterways and bridges, too, are now becoming better integrated into our
view of the urban fabric.64
The industrial architecture of Venice and its territories still needs fur-
ther study. Outside the Arsenal, our knowledge is limited to certain specific
examples, such as the ships’ biscuit factories on the Riva degli Schiavoni,
though even these are largely known by their façades.65 The number of
patents for mechanical inventions granted by the Senate in the last few
decades of the 16th century testifies to a remarkable concern for industrial
60 Sansovino, Venetia città nobilissima, fols 141v–142v.
61 Roberto Cessi and Annibale Alberti, Rialto: L’isola, il ponte, il mercato (Bologna, 1934);
Donatella Calabi and Paolo Morachiello, Rialto: Le fabbriche e il ponte 1514–1591 (Turin, 1987);
Ennio Concina, L’Arsenale della Repubblica di Venezia: Tecniche e istituzioni dal Medioevo
all’età moderna (Milan, 1984); Dorigo, Venezia romanica, 2:397–418.
62 Ennio Concina, Arsenali e città nell’Occidente europeo (Rome, 1987), Donatella Calabi,
The Market and the City: Square, Street and Architecture in Early Modern Europe, trans.
Marlene Klein (Aldershot, 2004).
63 Michela Agazzi, “Edilizia funzionale veneziana del XIV secolo,” in Francesco
Valcanover and Wolfgang Wolters, eds., L’architettura gotica veneziana (Venice, 2000), pp.
139–56; Dorigo, Venezia romanica, 2:418–35.
64 A pioneering study is Donatella Calabi, “Canali, rive, approdi,” in Storia di Venezia,
vol. 12 (1991): Il mare, ed Alberto Tenenti and Ugo Tucci, pp. 135–43.
65 Concina, L’Arsenale, p. 58; Donatella Calabi, “Una città ‘seduta sul mare,’ ” in Storia
di Venezia, vol. 12: Il mare, ed Tenenti and Tucci, pp. 761–88, on p. 802.