This thesis investigates the significant role that the Venetian humanist Vettor
Fausto (1490-1546), professor of Greek at the School of Saint Mark, played during the
first half of the 16th century in Venetian naval architecture. Early in the 16th century, the
maritime power of Venice was seriously threatened by the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman II
in the East and by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in the West. In order to regain its
naval power in the Mediterranean, the Republic of Venice strongly encouraged Venetian
shipwrights to submit new designs for war galleys. The undisputed founder and
champion of this naval program was not a skilled shipwright but a young professor of
Greek in the School of Saint Mark named Vettor Fausto, who in the heat of this renewal
programme, proposed “marine architecture” as a new scientia.
In 1529, Vettor Fausto built a quinqueremis whose design, he claimed, was based
upon the quinquereme “used by the Romans during their wars” and that he had derived
the shipbuilding proportions “from the most ancient Greek manuscripts.” The recovery
of Classical traditions resulted in major changes in many fields. It included shipbuilding practices as well, especially after Fausto introduced in the Venetian Arsenal a new
scientia, that of “marine architecture”, in opposition to the fabrilis peritia, the empirical
shipbuilding practice.
This work examines several Renaissance sources and archival material in order
to illuminate the technical features and the design of Fausto’s quinquereme. Based on
the study of the anonymous 16th-century Venetian manuscript Misure di vascelli etc.
di…proto dell’Arsenale di Venetia from the State Archive of Venice, this thesis presents
a general overview of Fausto’s life and his cultural background in order to better
understand the humanistic foundations that led him to propose the construction of the
quinquereme. Also presented in this thesis is a theoretical reconstruction of Fausto’s
quinquereme and the suggestion that the shipbuilding instructions contained in the
anonymous manuscript are connected to the work of Fausto in the Venetian Arsenal.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/148455 |
| Date | 14 March 2013 |
| Creators | Campana, Lilia 1975- |
| Contributors | Vieira de Castro, Filipe |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
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