ModernShip Project · The structures of the Early Modern Mediterranean shipbuilding

The knowledge of modern naval architecture reached an important stage in the late 80’s with the first characterization of 16th century Ibero-Atlantic shipbuilding drafted by Thomas Oertling. Together with the contribution made by this work to the definition of an architectural model for the ‘Atlantic’ nautical space, it has paved the way for a better understanding of the spatial organization of shipbuilding, where two quite distinct technical cultures coexist, the first called ""Atlantic"" and the second called ""Mediterranean"". Over the last 30 years, however, little progress has been made in describing these models, particularly the Mediterranean one, due to a lack of wrecks.The discoveries of the wrecks of Mortella (1527,France) and Santiago de Galicia (1597, Spain), both of Mediterranean shipbuilding tradition, together with the discovery of the probable Mediterranean constructive origin of other wreck dated from the 16th c. (Yarmouth Road, UK) change this situation. The prospect of the analysis of this archaeological data in conjunction with that of the two already documented wrecks of Mediterranean origin (Lomellina and Calvi I, 16th c.) opens the way, for the first time, to the draft of a Mediterranean technical model. By comparing it to the Atlantic model, it also enable a first approach to the technical organization of European shipbuilding as a whole.Therefore, the essential objective of my research project is to contribute to the knowledge of these nautical spaces conceived as ""technical spaces"" by prioritizing the study of Mediterranean technical culture, still largely unknown, and to characterize it in relation to its Atlantic counterpart. It eventually aims to understand and highlight a shipbuilding system in which these two nautical spaces have been in continuous interaction since the Middle Ages, and to try to comprehend them in all the complexity of their exchanges and technological transfers.""