Arsenale di Venezia

The Arsenale di Venezia occupies a large walled area of the Castello district in Venice, Veneto, Italy, at the eastern end of the city. Founded around 1104, it grew through successive enlargements, notably the Arsenale Nuovo in 1325 and Arsenale Nuovissimo in 1473, into a complex of about 46 hectares, once one of the largest industrial sites in Europe before the Industrial Revolution. Its workers, the arsenalotti, built galleys on what has been called an early assembly line, and chroniclers recorded that a galley could be completed in a single day when the fleet was needed. Ships built here supported Venice's trade network and fought at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. Dante referred to the shipyard's boiling pitch in the Inferno. The land entrance, the Porta Magna of 1460, is considered among the earliest Renaissance structures in Venice and is flanked by Greek marble lions taken from Piraeus and Delos, one carved with runic graffiti by Scandinavian mercenaries in the 11th century. Inside are long rope-works, the Corderie, the boat sheds and the Gaggiandre, monumental 16th-century covered docks attributed to Jacopo Sansovino. After the fall of the Republic in 1797 the Arsenale passed to French, Austrian and Italian navies, and much of it remained a military zone. Since the 1980s parts have been restored and opened for the Venice Biennale, including the Corderie and Artiglierie, which host the International Art Exhibition and Architecture Exhibition. The wider site is still partly used by the Italian navy and by research institutions, and restoration of the sheds and docks is ongoing. Visitors can view the Porta Magna and lions from the campo outside without a ticket, and other areas are open only when exhibitions run.