© Richard Barker
February 2002
THIS UNPUBLISHED PAPER WAS PROVIDED TO PARTICIPANTS AT A MAX PLANCK INSTITUT WORKSHOP, NOVEMBER 2001.
Abstract
In 1952, G.B.Rubin de Cervin wrote1 about a design for ships proposed for use by the Spanish against Venice, able to sail up to the quays in Venice itself; whence a rather fanciful description as 'Q' ships in the article. The context is that in 1619 someone - by inference a Venetian with shipbuilding knowledge - provided these plans to the Duke of Osuna, Viceroy of Naples, as part of the naval war between Spain and Venice, in which Osuna had also been attempting to acquire ships in England and Holland. These plans, or copies, were obtained by Spinelli, the Venetian Resident in Naples. Rubin de Cervin also reproduced three plates of drawings of this ship, which were in the Archivo di Stato, Venice2.
These are typical of shipbuilding drawings of the time - clearly quasi-technical, more or less to scale, but incomplete. Nonetheless, it is worth a glance at the section drawing, as it is replete with construction marks, and annotation in Venetian dialect. Unfortunately there is no mention of tonnage, and no more than a handful of explicit dimensions. The key parameter was that it was not to draw more than 10 or 11 feet (Venetian ?), and had to carry a heavy armament and soldiers to be landed in Venice. It was broadly in the form of a galleass, presumably to ensure its approach without delay.
Details of the drawing
The elevation drawing has a scale in paces, subdivided into feet (passos of five pies). The plan has a scale of paces, part divided into feet, and part into half-paces. The section drawing has the first pace divided into feet, and then is marked in half-paces. The description following is necessarily based on the published commentary and plates.
The section has characteristics individually recognisable from other sources.
[Discusses the published drawing, other extant ship drawings, and related material including tonnage measurement issues].