Their greatest size.
There is a tradition of a ship built at Venice, shortly before the quarrel between the Venetians and the Emperor Manuel, so large that, when she reached Constantinople, it was remarked that “no vessel of so great a bulk had ever been within that port;” but no historian has furnished posterity with her dimensions. She is merely described as a vessel with three masts and “of immense size,”[663]—a statement which may be one of comparison; and consequently she may not have been greater in her capacity than the larger class merchant ships of the present day. One historian[664] describes her as being large enough “to make twenty ships” (coasters?); another[665] states that being at Constantinople himself, at that time, he found that she was able to shelter from fifteen hundred to two thousand fugitives, whom she conveyed to the Adriatic. Nor, indeed, is there any reason for doubting the existence of such a ship. Vessels employed in the Crusades carried, in various instances, eight hundred persons,[666] and the ships of Marseilles frequently took on board a thousand passengers[667]—(pilgrims?); wherefore it is not unreasonable to suppose that the Venetians may have built a ship which actually made a somewhat distant voyage, with two thousand persons on board, and such provisions, clothing, and valuables as the fugitives could collect in the emergency. Although furnished with three masts, she does not appear to have carried any sails except the foresail, mainsail, and mizen; nor is there any mention of vessels of any nation, so early as the twelfth century, fitted with topsails; though they occasionally may have carried, in fair weather, triangular sails.
That the wealthy merchants of the Italian republics, and especially of Venice, owned various vessels of considerable dimensions, there can be even less doubt, as there is ample evidence in confirmation of this opinion. Twenty years after the period when the Venetian merchants resident at Constantinople found refuge in the large vessel to which we have just referred, mention is made of five of their ships which returned from Constantinople to Venice,[668] carrying seven thousand men-at-arms; or fourteen hundred men to each, if equally distributed. Although, in this case, the length of the voyage and the class of men are supplied, the mere fact of a ship being able to carry so many persons furnishes, in itself, a very imperfect idea of her dimensions, as they may have consisted of cabin or steerage passengers, troops, or pilgrims, to whom very different extents of space would be allotted. Even at the present day the Muhammedans, in their over-sea pilgrimages to the tomb of Muhammad, are satisfied with one-eighth of the space which the law of England requires for the transport of her meanest subjects; while the amount of space varies in different nations, and materially depends upon the length and character of the voyage.
Contract for the construction of vessels.
The only definite information we possess with regard to the actual dimensions of the vessels built by the Venetians during the periods of their prosperity, is to be found in a contract which their ship-builders made to furnish the king of France, in 1268, with fifteen ships. Of these vessels M. Jal[669] has furnished a minute description, together with their dimensions, as specified in the contract. The largest, the Roccaforte, was 110 feet in length over all, and only 70 feet length of keel, with 40 feet width of beam, and no less than 39½ feet in depth. The Saint Mary and Saint Nicholas were respectively 2 and 10 feet shorter, their width and depth being in somewhat similar proportions. The other twelve were smaller, having an extreme length each of 86 feet, with a keel of 58, a beam of 18, and an extreme depth of 29 feet. The two largest had each two decks, 5½ feet in height. Their bows and sterns were somewhat alike, and contained several cabins, with two poops, one above the other, the upper constituting a castle or fighting-deck like the vessels of more ancient times. Their respective crews consisted of 110 seamen; and the contract price for the construction of the largest of these vessels appears to have been fourteen hundred marks, or 933l. 6s. 8d. The smaller craft cost 466l. 13s. 4d., and they carried 50 men for their working crew.[670]
It is to be regretted that no details are given of the size or number of their masts, yards, sails, rigging, stores, or armament. The contract merely states that the larger vessels are to have two masts and two square sails, the foremast reaching over the bows, and answering the purpose of both mast and bowsprit; but what will strike the nautical reader most in these vessels is their extreme depth and their great width in comparison with their length.
MALTESE GALLEYS.
Great variety of classes.
Every account shows that the classes of vessels belonging to the Italian republics were even more numerous and varied than those of our own time. Besides the galleys we have named, the Venetians had others, which were about one hundred and thirty-five feet long, carrying three sails, very rapid in their movements, and so easily manœuvred, that they were kept almost exclusively for warlike purposes. A third description of galleys, carrying four sails, known by the name of the Mossane, were chiefly employed in the commerce of the Levant. Beyond these, the whole of the Italian republics owned a description of ship called coccas, or cocches,[671] of very large capacity, which were also frequently employed in the trade of the Levant. The accompanying drawing of two modern Maltese galleys, running side by side, which exhibits a great resemblance to another plate given by M. Jal from a drawing by an artist of the end of the fourteenth century, no doubt fairly represents the Venetian war galley of that period, and is at the same time not unlike another galley we also give by that author, the original sketch of which is in the famous MS. of Virgil in the Riccardi Library at Venice.