Venice and the Craft Guilds

Yesterday we had the opportunity to visit the Arsenale of Venice. I was surprised to see how abandoned some parts of it were considering it was such a busy place in the past. As many of you reading this blog probably know, Venice is famous for its beautiful canals (which we actually discovered are called rios rather than canals). As we made our way from our hotel to the Arsenale, we crossed several bridges. This made me realize just how integrated the water was into the lives of the Venetians. Walking to work every day would require crossing several of these bridges.

An outside portion of the Arsenale where these large ships
were built.

As you would expect in a seaside town, shipbuilding was incredibly important. Connor and I read an article about the craft guilds and found that there are three guilds that make up shipbuilding; carpenters, caulkers, and sawyers. Guilds were important because they helped monitor employee-employer relationships. If the Arsenale needed to hire workers to help build their ships, they would most likely go to the guild leader and request workers. From here the guild leaders could negotiate wages as well as rotate the workers so everyone, including older workers, had the opportunity for employment.  

It was not easy to become a member of a guild, and it required a lot of training to be considered a “master” of the craft. Our tour guide explained that there was a many-year training period before testing to become a master. The article calls this time period an apprenticeship. These apprentices were all young boys. If a boy is a non-family member of someone in the guild, the youngest they were allowed to start their apprenticeship was age twelve. If the boy was the family member of a guild member, however, the minimum age to begin was age ten. Additionally, there was a maximum entry age of fourteen. Although it is easy to assume the age of the guilds have passed, there are still remnants of them hidden in the bones of the city; in the Arsenale, where many guild members were employed.

A rooftop view from our hotel.

Venice is a fantastic city, rich in history and terracotta rooftops. We started off today at a mass service in the beautiful Basilica di San Marco and a tour through the massive Palazzo Ducale. Enjoy the photos!