venetian architecture 761
innovation, using both water power and furnace technology.66 In the
period of this essay, Venice was a thriving center for the manufacture of
glass, soap, ceramics, and a wide range of textiles, not to mention the
mills and factories of the terraferma, but the architectural context of these
activities has so far received little attention.67 Because of Vitruvius’s inter-
est in machines, Daniele Barbaro included woodcuts of various devices for
water management in his editions of 1556 and 1567, but early modern trea-
tise writers showed little interest in the architectural fabric of mills and
kilns.68 The discussion of industrial buildings in print was largely confined
to works on metallurgy, furnace technology, and fortification.69
The military architecture of the Venetian Republic became progres-
sively more technically sophisticated during the 16th century, as gunpow-
der technology advanced and defenses were modified to resist its threat.
Gradually, during the course of the 16th century, the design of fortifica-
tions became the preserve of military engineers rather than architects.70
In the city gates, such as those designed by Falconetto in Padua and San-
micheli in Verona, ideology and classical references still held symbolic
value. Sanmicheli’s Fortezza di Sant’Andrea in the Venetian lagoon dis-
played its rusticated Doric frontage to the incoming seafarer, just as the
city gates of Verona confronted the incomer by road.71 Elsewhere, how-
ever, fortifications now took the form of unspectacular low earthworks
punctuated by angle bastions. In contrast to the picturesque walls and
towers of medieval towns such as Montagnana, these ramparts created a
rather unimpressive periphery to the townscape, though their star-shaped
plans, as depicted in military treatises, held a geometrical and strategic
fascination. The ideal fortress town of Palmanova, erected by the Serenis-
sima on the eastern borders of Friuli at the end of the 16th century as a
66 Pamela O. Long, Openness, Secrecy, Authorship: Technical Arts and the Culture of
Knowledge from Antiquity to the Present (Baltimore/London, 2001), pp. 89–96.
67 Pioneering studies are Ennio Concina, Venezia nell’età moderna: Struttura e funzioni
(Venice, 1989); and Donatella Calabi, “Magazzini, fondaci, dogane,” in Storia di Venezia,
vol. 12: Il mare, ed Tenenti and Tucci, pp. 789–817.
68 Daniele Barbaro, ed., I dieci libri dell’architettura di M. Vitruvio (Venice, 1567),
pp. 463–64.
69 See, for example, Vannoccio Biringuccio, De la pirotechnia: Libri X (Venice, 1540); and
Bonaiuto Lorini, Le fortificationi (Venice, 1609).
70 Useful overviews are André Chastel et al., L’architettura militare veneta del
Cinquecento (Milan, 1988); and Ennio Concina and Elisabetta Molteni, La fabrica della
fortezza: L’architettura militare di Venezia (Verona, 2001).
71 See especially the city gates designed by Sanmicheli, analysed in Paul Davies and
David Hemsoll, Michele Sanmicheli (Milan, 2004). On those of Falconetto in Padua, see
Giuliana Mazzi, Adriano Verdi, and Vittorio Dal Piaz, Le mura di Padova (Padua, 2002).