Venetian Arsenal

Antonio's mother was Camilla Calicio, the daughter of a tailor.

The couple had married on the 11th of June 1677 and settled near the Arsenale, the great shipyard that was the industrial heart of Venetian military power.

Antonio was their first child, and his arrival on the 4th of March 1678 was immediately alarming.

He was so frail that the midwife, a woman named Madama Margherita Veronesi, baptized him at home on the very night of his birth, a practice reserved for infants whose survival seemed uncertain.

And in the 1500s, they basically introduced the arquebus barrel.

And there was, uh, 185 barrels were supplied by Bartolomeo Beretta to the Venetian arsenal.

The, the payment was 296 ducats, and that was the earliest documented Beretta transaction.

There were components for early long guns, not complete arms or anything.

We don't know how much they raised, but they were able to raise a huge sum, enough to build 120 warships, galleys.

So the, the Arsenale, which is Venice's famed, uh, shipyard-

It's still a great, great tourist destination.

I've seen it several times.

Oh, really?

... financial conferences.

So if you're listening and you're a banker and you wanna have a historic place to talk about bonds, go to the Arsenale.

Oh, fascinating.

If the fire escaped the palace, the heart of Venice could be consumed.

Preventing that wider disaster now depended upon men accustomed to working with timber, ropes, water and heavy materials on an industrial scale, the labour force of the Venetian Arsenal.

The Venetian Arsenal was the Republic's shipbuilding and naval complex, a huge organised workforce capable of constructing, repairing and equipping warships.

Its labourers possessed precisely the practical skills required by the emergency.

Arsenal workers joined palace staff, magistrates and other citizens at the scene, bringing experience of heights, rigging and coordinated manual labour.

The man who invented this mysterious island was Niccolo Zeno, born in 1515 into one of the oldest noble houses in Venice.

He'd been made a special commissioner for the Venetian Arsenal at 23, sat in the Senate and on the Council of 10, and was respected as a mathematician and hydraulic engineer.

He was also the editor for the Northern Regions in the 1561 Venetian edition of Ptolemy's World Atlas.

In 1558, Zeno put out a book, anonymously at first, and most of it was a fairly accurate account of an ancestor's embassy to Persia.

During this six-month-long international showdown of art, in palazzos and pavilions, art from all corners of the world is on display.

Pinning this exhibitionary explosion together is the group show In Minor Keys, curated by Koyo Koh, that spans the Arsenale and Giardini.

Featuring 111 participants, the theme emphasises the fundamental role artists play in interpreting the social and psychic context and initiating new responses, connections and actions.

Dana Awatani is an artist who delves deep into the forms, processes, ideas and spaces that give shape to the culture of the Middle East.